


Scimitar

by chezchuckles



Series: Army Castle [7]
Category: Castle (TV 2009)
Genre: Army Spy, F/M, including his stamina, nor hers, reminder: nothing of this man is real in any way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:07:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 114,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27623827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chezchuckles/pseuds/chezchuckles
Summary: Beckett returns home after a long but fruitless city-wide police chase—only to discover their quarry in her own kitchen.
Relationships: Kate Beckett & Richard Castle, Kate Beckett/Richard Castle
Series: Army Castle [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1945063
Comments: 72
Kudos: 83





	1. Chapter 1

Castle crouched over the deck with his neck forced down by a dark, rough hand. Sweat poured into his eyes, burning; he had to blink hard to keep them clear so he could see - see the rough wooden planks under him, see the bare, wide feet clustered close, see the too-calm ocean just past the metal railing. 

The man who had shoved him to his knees pushed again on his neck, bowing Castle to the deck. He had trouble breathing with the fingers gripped around his trachea, trouble keeping conscious.

This was bad. His hands tied behind his back made it impossible to catch his balance, but even that shouldn’t be insurmountable. He would escape this - eventually. They were just sea-pirates out of Somalia. Not a big deal. He might lose a few fingers - he had a feeling the number was up for debate right this very moment - but he was a heartbeat away from freedom.

But this was very bad for his long-term survival. 

His father had sent him here. It had been Black’s information that had sent Castle out on these waters, in this boat, during these conditions. No crew. No colors. No radio. 

He’d been on a mission, but it had been Black’s mission. 

His cheek was slammed into the deck and he grunted, one eye closing, felt his hands being half untied. This was going to be his one chance. This was it.

Four of them wrestled him down to the deck, sweat-heaving bodies, a knee in his kidney, a man crouched on his thigh. His shoulder was wrenched, one of his arms separated - his left - he heard the shout and call for a blade, felt the coolness against his skin as if to test the conditions.

He roared out in both battle-ready fury and also a calculated attempt to scatter their nerves, and then he bucked upward.

His wrist met the blade when it was only halfway through its downward swing and immediately Castle felt the numb nothing of a useless limb. 

But his right arm was free, he was on his knees with a man bellowing under him, and Castle swung the wounded arm around, spraying blood across the deck. Men dodged him, fell back, and Castle tucked his arm near his bare chest, gritting his teeth against the pain, and darted for the railing.

He jumped overboard.

Hitting the waves forced a scream from this throat and water down his lungs and he gagged, spewing salt and blood as he broke the surface. Bullets strafed the sea; he swam doggedly for the tugboat still roped to the cargo vessel - the pirates’ ship was off a ways.

Castle had adrenaline and he had desperation, but he also held the burning knowledge that his father - his father had set this all up. That alone propelled him up the side of the tug with the great and burning agony in his wrist.

He fell onto the tug and gazed blankly at the open sky for half a heartbeat before he got to his feet and raced for the wheel. The man was on him almost before Castle had gained his feet, but he flinched back from the hand hanging limp, the blood, the gruesome gap of flesh and Castle propelled himself forward, knocked the pilot clear over the railing and into the drink.

A shout from behind had Castle pivoting with a kick; the second man fell back and smashed his head on the deck. Castle scooped him up and tossed him over as well, and then he went back for the pilothouse, scanning the instruments fast and choosing his best options.

He throttled the engines and slammed it into reverse, then ran back outside and cast off ropes and ripped open knots. Bullets again; he was hunched behind the great metal capstan, and he crawled back to the bridge on his belly.

His arm was livid with pain.

The tugboat was chugging out water, waves slapping the hull, and Castle had to dismantle the winch as well, give the tug a chance to get clear.

His vision was tunneling. Blood slipped him up. He hit the main deck with a knee and realized he was down, pushed himself up again using the gunwale, lurched into the ladder leading up to the wheelhouse.

He slammed the door and locked it, spun dizzily towards the controls. Castle lashed himself to wheel and held a steady course for shore, but he knew he couldn’t stop there.

He couldn’t stop.

His father had done this. His father wanted him out of the game, and there had to be a reason.

He needed to get back to operations in New York. He had to get - someone. His father wasn’t to be trusted. His father couldn’t be trusted.

\-----

Detective Beckett was chewing over her options inside the coffeehouse when her radio squawked. Still not used to the shiny new badge, the hip-walkie, or the salary that let her afford high-end coffee from boutique cafes, Beckett abandoned the line and dove back outside into the New York City heat wave.

She was immediately regretful.

But she answered her call with a clipped response, got her instructions from dispatch, and headed for the unmarked.

She had a car. She really loved working Vice. Even when she had to stand on street corners, she loved this job.

Beckett could even forego the coffee if it meant weaving her way in and out of traffic with the sirens and lights, gunning the engine through the tail end of a yellow light, inching through pedestrians scattering in the crosswalks. She was running a red when the radio blared at her again, and she answered.

Had to turn off the lights and sirens. No longer an emergency. First on scene had found the plane - illegal landing - and were searching it now. Cocaine packed in with fish, dispatch told her, passing along something that was more gossip than strict codes.

“10-4,” she said, grimly swerving the car into the private landing strip just north of the city. Vice got calls like this all the time - drug smuggling was their main focus - but it was rare to catch the plane as it landed.

The pilot had all but buzzed the damn city doing it. Kate had been inside her coffeehouse, listening to a grinder; she’d missed it. She wasn’t unhappy - planes flying close still made her skin crawl and her heart leap in her throat. 9/11 felt fresh even if it wasn’t.

When Beckett arrived on scene, it was already crazy. She found her sergeant and reported in, was immediately assigned to collecting forensics. Not a bad duty, but boring unless you were Beckett.

She liked walking the scene; she loved the weird ones. And this was a weird one.

Large craft cargo, basically running on fumes, had landed at a private strip, practically on top of a couple of other planes, nearly into the fence on the other side, and stopped. 

And then maneuvered into the hangar like the pilot was parking the damn thing. Beckett surveyed the limp plane and cocked her head, mouth filling with a taste she might have contributed to coffee if she’d had any yet.

Adrenaline, more likely. This kind of thing amped her up.

Pilot was gone. Blood trail right out the front door, but as Beckett studied it, she saw what some of the others didn’t quite - it was faked. Oh, the blood was real all right, but the drops were too regular and the pacing was off. A wounded man hoping to escape, not much time, doing it quick, then bandaging himself up right here, at this spot near the open hangar.

But these places always had mechanics’ entrances and exits, and as Beckett made her rounds, trailing across machinery and tools and over a second plane that was permanently docked here, she found it.

“Over here. Sergeant!” She hunched close to the ragged material caught on the chest-high toolbox. She glanced around as she heard the rush of bodies, saw a whole forensics team heading for her and her sergeant nodding once.

She’d been set loose in here on purpose. She always found the odd sock.

Beckett straightened up. Guy, wounded, running. He was gonna hole up somewhere; he’d come here to get as close as he could despite the danger so he was desperate. Absolutely desperate. 

Her sergeant came up to her side. “Good eye, Detective.”

“Yes, sir. He’s gone though.”

“He is.”

“Gone to ground. He’s got contacts here. Only reason to fly this fucker into the hangar and give us a false trail - gained him just enough time to go to ground.”

“Fuck,” her sergeant swore. 

“Yes, sir.”

“Damn it, Beckett. That is not what I want to hear. You go rouse this little rabbit. We need him. Plane can’t fucking buzz this city and get away with it. Not in this day and age.”

Beckett grimaced. She was going to be out all day rabbit hunting.

\-----

Kate peeled the jacket off in the car and immediately tugged her hair up and off her neck the moment she had a chance. She’d stolen the rubberband from the Captain’s own desk, but fuck, it was hot.

She sat for a second in the sweltering car, mentally reviewed her conversation, but she didn’t see a place or way for to have gone differently.

The sun had set but it was still fucking hot. And she was still being asked to please consider your options. She didn’t have options; she had a sergeant who liked to keep her caged until he could set her loose on a trail, and she had a mother who had been murdered brutally in her own home.

She wasn’t bound for life in Vice. She was bound for Homicide.

Please consider toning it down a little, Beckett. You’re bad for morale.

Fuck morale. 

Maybe she shouldn’t have said that. Maybe that was why they were giving her mandatory leave for five days with pay. Maybe that was why the Captain had said she ought to go back to her therapist and get herself cleared before she came back.

The therapist. Fuck. She was going right now, nine at night be damned. She was heading straight for his damn office and she was getting herself cleared to work this fucking case. It was the most interesting thing she’d seen in months.

She was destined for Homicide, but she had to fucking play the game. She knew that. She’d known it, somewhere in there, but she had a really terrible feeling that everything was swinging too fast out of her control, that she was reaching for something that would never be close enough to grasp.

And maybe. Okay, maybe, just a little, she saw this one crazy, fucked up relationship in her life as the only good thing she had left anymore and she wanted that to not be true at all.

Damn it. Damn it all, she was thinking about him again. 

Beckett growled at herself and jammed the key in the ignition, grateful when the car started despite her rough treatment. She drove the unmarked home as if hounded, and she guessed she was.

Hounded by him. Images. Thoughts. Wonderings. She had used to daydream of the way his body felt against hers, how he’d felt inside her, but lately it was the cock of his head she couldn’t forget. It was the curl of his lips when she’d made him smile. It was the intensity of the way he looked at her when he had to leave, rather than the intensity of the way he looked when he’d come.

Fuck, she was so screwed. She needed fucking clarity. The shrink was a good idea, she thought maybe. Get her head on straight. No therapist worth his salt was going to say she should be fuck buddies with a spy. She needed to excise that one right out, she most certainly did.

Yeah. She would. Change the locks first. Though she didn’t think it would truly stop him. But it would be a pretty damn clear message.

But he could be sweet sometimes - and he’d come to her apartment door and the key wouldn’t fit and he’d get the message, he would, and oh, it would hurt his feelings. She knew that without even having to ask, it would hurt him, the tender heart of him back behind all the gruff, fucking-hot badassery.

She hesitated at the light and turned for home instead of the shrink.

\-----

At the front door of her apartment, a sick sensation rose up in her guts.

Maybe it had been clamoring there for her all day, but she just hadn’t wanted to feel it. Or maybe it was just that perfect confluence of clues.

Her door was not quite closed.

The knob was smudged.

She closed her eyes for a breath and the image of that bloody, even trail inside the hangar shimmered before her.

Beckett pushed open the door but it caught; it had been closed just enough, just enough that she had to twist the knob and put her hip into it, push it past the place where it always stuck. 

Inside, her apartment was pristine. But she slammed the door shut and locked it fast, and she hurried around the kitchen counter because she knew.

Blood coated the floor, splashed awkwardly along her cabinets, across the stainless steel, while on the floor, a man had passed out unconscious.

Her man. Her spy. Bleeding copiously despite the t-shirt clumped around his left arm where - where his hand should be, should be - blood slicking everything despite the belt-tourniquet cinched around his elbow.

Kate’s heart plummeted and she leaned for the kitchen sink, gagged twice before she could control it. Before she was even done, she crashed to her knees at his hip, reaching for the shirt.

It was soaked with blood. Black t-shirt but the blood was both fresh and old at the same time. Kate’s hands were wet when she reached for her cell phone; she left dark red smears as she tried to call.

She pressed her phone to her ear with a shoulder, peeled back the shirt-

“Fuck!”

His violence made the phone drop, he caught her around the neck with an arm, and she was dragged down against his bare chest before she could blink.

“Castle, Castle,” she gasped, throat closing up at the pressure of his good arm, and still she tried to hold herself away from the bad, keep from damaging-

“Kate.”

And then he collapsed back to the floor, eyes rolling back, and she was shaking. She was soaked in his blood and shaking so hard she couldn’t get her hands to pick up the phone again.

“Castle,” she rasped. She was crying. Tears or blood on her cheeks, and she leaned in over him, hands hovering. “Castle, God, we have to get to a hospit-”

“No!” He jerked forward, slammed into her so that now she was pinned against her cabinets by his heaving, hot chest, blood slick and wet at her belly. “No, can’t. Can’t. Can’t.”

“Castle, your arm. What - your hand. We have to get-”

“Fine. I’m fine. Just-”

“You’re not,” she husked, and now her hands found purchase on his shoulders and she tried to ease him away from her but he was fucking heavy. “You’re not fine. You’re dying on my floor.”

“Not gonna die. Not possible.” He shivered hard and it rattled her head against the cabinets.

“Castle. How the hell you managed to fly a plane, I don’t know, but you’re going into shock and you’re-”

“Can’t go to a hospital, Beckett,” he said. It was clear. It was very distinct. It was final. “Never. No other choice.”

“Rick,” she whispered, cupping the side of his face just to check his pulse. Weak, thready, so weak. “Rick, you’re going to bleed out.”

“It’s stopping. Stopped. Just don’t touch it.”

“No, baby, that’s not going to work this time,” she rasped. Her throat ached like she’d been screaming and she closed her eyes. “You need medical care. You have to have medical care.”

“No hospitals. It’s - can’t. I can’t. I absolutely can’t. Life is forfeit.”

“No,” she choked out. “It’s not forfeit. You-”

“Can’t. I can’t. You can’t.” He was panting against her cheek, and she felt him trying to rise, to get up. “I took - took the shot. I’m okay. I’ll be okay.”

“You’re not - fuck the tetanus shot, Castle. Your arm is - you’re drenched in blood.” She steeled herself and shoved him off of her; he yelled as he fell back and she tried to catch him, she did, she got an arm under his neck and just kept his head from hitting the floor.

And then she skimmed her hand down his arm and to the soaked t-shirt. She realized he had rubberbands around it, like the one in her fucking hair, holding it tight. She had to squirm out from under him and crawl down his body to his arm, and then she had to peel the rubberbands off, one by one.

She was afraid to unwrap it, afraid it would absolutely drench the place in his blood. She checked the tourniquet again, tightened the belt just in case, and then she peeled the shirt off his arm.

“Whoa, fuck,” she gasped. 

His wrist was - blood was - his hand was angled strangely and she saw bone.

“It’s okay,” he garbled.

“Fuck, it is not okay,” she moaned. Kate got on her knees and reached for the crooked, wrong set of his wrist. She didn’t know what to do.

“I got a shot. Had - some here. Left it in your fridge - so it’s fine. It’s fine-”

“It’s not fine,” she hissed. “Castle-”

“Just needs to close up,” he panted. He was trying to lift himself off the floor and his face was white as chalk, but for lack of anything else to do, she helped him.

He leaned hard into her, his whole body trapping hers, heavy, and he took one hand and crossed it over his body, tucked his mangled wrist close to his chest.

“Castle,” she warned.

“It looks worse than it is,” he gasped out. He had to be in serious pain. “Just needs - needs a butterfly bandage or two. Let the skin come together.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You need stitches at the very least. Your hand is partially detached, Castle.”

“No, it’s not,” he said, and then he wiggled his fingers. Kate stared. Her heart was beating too hard in her chest, her hands were shaky, but she reached for the wounded, ragged arm.

“Rick. Rick, I can’t have you die on my kitchen floor. I have to call someone. Something. 9-11 or a - I have friends - a paramedic friend with the NYFD. Fuck, Lanie is a morgue doctor but she’s a doctor-”

“No,” he yelped, shifting heavier into her. “No. Nobody else. No one can know.”

“Castle-”

“Butterfly bandages, Kate, fuck. For the love of - I just need a couple butterfly bandages, I swear. I swear.”

“Castle, butterfly bandages won’t stop this,” she husked. Her training was completely deserting her. Completely. She was a fucking terrible cop if all she could do was touch his face with her bloodied fingers and try not to cry.

“It will. Be fine. Promise. Just some... ‘fore I pass out again, Becks. Butterfly bandages. I already took the shot.”  
The shot, the shot.

Kate blinked. The shot? She had seen the vials in her fridge, thought it was diabetic insulin or - what had she thought exactly? That’s what he’d injected. How the fuck was that supposed to help?

Well, he’d flown a plane nearly right to her doorstep for it. Had to mean it would help.

Butterfly bandages. She had that. She had a whole damn first aid kit thanks to him - he’d insisted after the knife incident.

“Castle?”

He mumbled something but his eyes were closed. She was awash in his blood, but despite that, he was still hanging in there. So was - so was that hand.

He could wriggle his fingers and that seemed impossible, so-

Butterfly bandages. 

Come on, Beckett, get your shit together.

\-----

She hadn’t been able to get her father on the phone. 

It was, of course, nearly nine at night. He was at a bar; she knew that, it was on the surface of things, but for some reason the connection hadn’t been made to he won’t be there for you when you call.

Well, it was made now. She’d called Lanie.

Lanie was now currently cursing faster and harder than Castle ever did as she stitched his hand back to his wrist. 

“You swear to me he could move his fingers?” Lanie said again.

They were both on her kitchen floor, Lanie on one side of him, Kate with his head in her lap in case he woke. He hadn’t woken up. He wouldn’t. She was pretty sure he was going to die.

“I swear,” she choked out. “All of them.” Lanie wasn’t even a friend. Lanie was a woman in a similar profession whom Detective Beckett had joked with a little and even shared an eye-roll. “I’m sorry to do this to you.”

“First do no harm and all that shit,” Dr Parish growled. She wasn’t even really an ME yet; she was doing her residency at the morgue. She was barely in on her chosen field and Beckett was seriously fucking up her career plans with this.

“I’m really sorry,” Beckett said again. She could hear her own voice. She could. It was - not her best moment. She couldn’t keep her eyes away from Castle’s hand, the wrist, the way his skin was being stitched back together.

Lanie had draped a blue paper cloth over the rest of his arm, a sterile field she’d said, nose curling at the state of Kate’s kitchen. The blue cloth kept her from seeing everything, kept her from entirely feeling like she was in a foxhole in some damn warzone.

Beckett stroked her fingers over Castle’s temples, blood gritty and coming off his skin with her movement. She couldn’t bear to look at his face. 

Her father had found her mother dead in the apartment, sprawled in the hallway. Blood everywhere. Her father had been - he was - she had not been allowed inside. She had been stopped at the elevator and hadn’t even gotten the chance to glance down the hallway.

There was, improbably, blood streaked on the stainless steel above the stovetop. She blinked and stared at it until it resolved into fingerprints. 

Oh, that was okay. Fingerprints. That made sense.

“Every finger?” Lanie said harshly. “You fucking better swear-”

“Every finger,” she answered dully. “He said a butterfly bandage would do.”

“Shit,” Lanie whispered. “He’s a fucking moron. You got yourself a moron of a mobster, Detective Beckett.”

“He’s not a mobster,” she croaked.

“Hitman. Whatever. I ain’t askin.”

“Pretty loudly ain’t asking,” Beckett shot back. Her fingers caught in Castle’s hair and clumped. Blood. More blood. “He’s not a hitman. He’s not - he’s not any of those things.”

“Look, just don’t drag me into your mafia princess bullshit, Detective. I’m doing this because you called me and I thought of you as a friend, but neither of us can afford for you to have a fucking love affair with the criminal underworld. Fucking hell, I didn’t think you were this stupid.”

Kate blinked, staring down at Castle. “He’s not a criminal,” she found herself saying. “He’s a-”

Can’t. can’t, can’t, can’t-

“He’s in the Army,” she whispered. “He’s just - in the Army.”

She felt her friend - Lanie was a friend. Had been, maybe. Would have been. She felt Lanie pause and look at her. “Right, honey.”

Kate lifted her head and pierced Lanie with all the strength of her conviction. “Army. Doing - I don’t know what, Lanie, but he’s just in the Army.”

“Dishonorably fucking discharged, maybe.”

Kate looked helplessly down at her Army Ranger, her spy, her - the almost-dead man on her kitchen floor. “I don’t know. He’s never allowed to say.”

Oh, but he said too much. He said enough to get her in trouble. He brought her home strange gifts and stranger stories and she opened her legs to him and accepted them all. 

And where was the dog?

Oh, God. Oh, God, where was the dog. The dog. Where-

Her dad’s.

Fuck. 

Kate sank back against the cabinets, head tilting crazily towards the ceiling, and she gulped as much air as she could. She was losing it. She was really losing it. Her father had the dog when she worked shift like this; she’d taken Cujo to his place herself yesterday. Holy fucking hell, she was scrambled.

“Best I can do,” Lanie said then. “Beckett. Let me tell you about wound care. Are you listening to me? Snap out of it, girlfriend.”

Kate blinked and sat up, glanced down at the hand. Shiny with iodine, black stitched like he was a doll. Or Frankenstein’s own monster. She swallowed hard and looked at Lanie.

“Wound care. Yes. What do I have to do?”

\-----


	2. Chapter 2

He woke.

His lashes felt heavy. He couldn’t open his mouth. Pain had dragged him here, left him to rot, overripe. He was too hot and his skin felt tight, like it was going to burst. He-

“Kate.”

She was staring down at him, but at her name her mouth cracked open. “Rick. Hey.”

He closed his eyes. It was too heavy for him out there. The world was too much.

“Rick. Please. Please don’t-”

He wrenched his eyes open, saw her terrible, shining grief. He tried to raise a hand and gasped, the pain sinking its teeth into his wrist and shaking like a mangy dog. “God,” he whispered tightly. “Kate.”

She had her lips pressed tightly together, light shimmering in her eyes, watery. He ignored the left hand, lifted his right one instead, caught the back of her neck. She grunted as he pulled her down; she fell inelegantly over him, her ribs at his mouth, shirt tasted bad, like metal.

“Stop, stop,” she was whispering. “It’s okay. You’re okay. Stop, baby. You need to calm down.”

Calm down. He wasn’t not calm. He was exhausted. Everything in his bones felt broken and remade, like a computer with a nasty virus, chugging half-speed, no-speed.

“Hey, hey, you’re okay,” she mumbled. Her mouth was at his temple. “No, wait, wait, keep your eyes open, Rick. Please, don’t fall back asleep. I can’t get you to wake-”

“I’m awake,” he croaked. That couldn’t be his voice.

“You’re awake? Good, that’s good. That’s good.” She was petting his hair; it felt really nice. He was on her kitchen floor and it hurt, there was a stiff ache running through his back, and his arm was a hot mess, but her fingers were cool. He thought he was going to fall asleep anyway, even though it seemed she wanted company.

“Gotta sleep,” he mumbled.

“It’s been two hours,” she scraped out. “I couldn’t get you to wake up. I’m afraid you’re - you’ll slip under. Don’t-”

“It’s okay,” he reminded her, patting the knee he found with his good hand. His eyes were already shut. “Just the shot, baby. Just the shot. Does this, makes me tired.”

“No. No, Rick, you’ve - lost a lot of blood, baby. You have a lot of blood loss and Lanie stitched your wrist back together, but it’s not - not exactly-”

“Just the shot,” he mumbled. She sounded thin, like her words were hard to find, and he moved to turn over, but everything crunched his bones. “Ow.”

She choked, laugh or breath, clutched his head. “God. You - ow? That’s what you say to a wrist dangling by ligaments and-”

“My hand,” he whispered, blinking up at her. She was tear-streaked through blood, hair snaking around her temple, eyes brimming with more grief than she ever ought to have. “Sorry, wait, love. I’m here.”

She sucked in fast breaths, closed her eyes only to flare them sharply open again.

Castle lurched forward, sat up even as she gasped, urged, no, no, don’t do that. 

“I’m okay. I’m here.” He fell into the cabinets trying to get up, smacked his cheek hard, shoulder taking the brunt. His legs didn’t seem to want to work. The floor was sticky. Slick in places. “I should go. Go get. I should-”

“You should be in bed,” she shot at him. He felt it in his guts like buckshot. Scattered, weeping holes. He couldn’t move.

“I’m...”

“If you’re walking, it’s only to my bed. You hear me?”

“Walk me to bed?”

She growled something and he felt her under his armpit, hard in there, shoving him to his feet. He rose and swayed, hips knocking into the counter, felt deliriously sick. He was going to vomit. Oh, fuck. Fuck, he couldn’t throw up on her.

“Kate,” he gasped. He sank back to his knees and then fell over and it was dark again. 

\-----

She had stopped trying to wake him. It was only her own fear that made her do it anyway, so she just quit.

Instead she found a bedsheet and rolled him back and forth until he was mostly on it, and then she dragged him out towards the living room, stopped only by the stretch of carpet. Once there, it seemed a nicer setting for his bleached-white body to be beached, and so she gathered every soft surface in her apartment and made him a nest. 

Pillows around his arm and wrist, taking care not to jostle him so the pain wouldn't bring him semi-conscious. Semi-conscious was the hardest, because he looked at her and didn't know her, he lashed out and tried to fight, and she didn't have the strength left to fend him off.

She was nursing a black eye and a definite bruised rib after the last time.

A couple of rolled up blankets kept his arm and neck stable, and then she finished with a pallet on the floor. She covered him in just a sheet because he was burning up, bare-chested, jeans ripped in a hundred places and bloodied as well, but she left him like that.

She went back to the kitchen and poured water in a plastic bucket and bleach - a drop of bleach - into it and then she scrubbed. Blood on her floor was easiest, though the cracks in the tile were stained and the bleach didn't seem to help. Her kitchen as crime scene was going to incriminate the hell out of her, but she really didn't know who might care if he died.

Other than herself.

The dog certainly seemed to like him. Her own father-

His father. What was his name? Black? Where was Rick's father now? Why hadn't Castle gone to him? He was a spy too, from what she could figure out, and he was in charge of things. In charge of Castle, and even if the man did sound like a complete and utter bastard, controlling as hell, she couldn't imagine a scenario in which Castle wouldn't go to him first.

Those vials. The shot, he'd said. Well, if he came around again, she'd offer to call his father. If he had a number or an office space somewhere. Or a dead drop. Whatever the fuck these people used.

She kept finding new spots. The handle of her fridge was smeared liberally, like he'd been soaked in it and reached out to yank open the door. Following through on that thought, Kate found blood inside the fridge, still bright red and beaming. Chilled through.

She scrubbed the cabinets, the counters, the stainless steel, the faucets, the vent-hood over the stove, the backsplash. It was only when the water still persisted in remaining pink that she realized.

She was covered in it. His blood. She was the last ugly stain.

Kate swallowed down the burning sensation - too much bleach - and she stepped shakily over his body and towards her bedroom, shedding clothes as she went.

\-----

The shower was still running pink, but she didn't have time to dawdle. She scrubbed it out of her hair, down her neck, she ran soap over her body two, three times, figured that was the best it was going to get and it wasn't like she hadn't soaked up enough of his bodily fluids before now to get her sick or fucked up or whatever.

Damn it, he was not allowed to die on her kitchen floor.

Well, living room either. No.

Kate wrung her hair out with the towel, scraped it back, so pissed at herself - irrationally - for having cut it in a fit that now she couldn't even keep it up. The rubberband helped snag the hair, but it always fell and-

Fuck.

Fuck, what did it matter at all?

Kate dragged on leggings and a black t-shirt, fuck it was one of his, but it smelled like hers, and she headed back out into her living room and sank down at his side. She'd only been able to drag him to the most inconvenient spot, but at least the couch was right there. She could - sleep there if...

Yeah, probably not. Too far away.

And she was tired, but her body was primed in a way that would make sleep impossible. She finally allowed her eyes to roam over him, down his left arm to the bright black of those stitches, and impossibly, the still-working fingers.

She hoped still working. He had tried to lift his hand for her, to grab her, and she'd seen those fingers flex then too. Her ribs hurt when she breathed; that was new. She hadn't realized he'd gotten her quite so good.

Fuck, Lanie would think the absolute worst of her if she saw her now.

Kate reached out and lightly touched the back of his hand.

His skin was tight and puffy, hot. Very hot. She pulled her hand back, biting her lip. Lanie had said infection, here were the signs, but red - it should be red streaks, smell of gangrene like rotting eggs. She didn't smell that. 

Lanie had left written instructions on the coffee table. Beckett pulled them to her and tried to comprehend this time, tried to have each word enter into her and make actual sense.

Ice. Ice his hand. She could ice his hand and the stitches if it started to swell; it would burst the skin around the stitches if she didn't watch it.

Fuck, fuck, she had nearly missed that taking a damn shower, cleaning her fucking kitchen. What the hell was wrong with her?

Beckett got to her feet and opened the freezer door, pulled out bags of frozen vegetables, pulled out the ice trays. She had ziplock bags and she filled them with ice, and then she gathered it all up against her chest and carried it back to him on the floor.

She knelt down and gingerly touched his hand, the hot skin strained and slick with iodine. His palm was up, cupped like a cradle, and she had a strange thought and acted, scooping out an ice cube and laying it in the pool of his hand.

He didn't even twitch. She laid ice packs around his wrist, keeping it propped up, keeping it stable, and then she remembered it could burn him, fucking idiot she was, and she jumped to her feet and grabbed dishcloths from the drawer and came back.

She wrapped the ice packs this time and then she laid them along his wrist, and when she checked his palm, the ice cube had melted to a puddle.

She was shaking again. Her hands were refusing to obey her orders. She laid her head down on the floor and closed her eyes and tried to just will herself to be better, to be calm, but it was no good.

The vision behind her eyes was worse - his blood, his body collapsed on the kitchen floor, his face the white of bleached bones - and she opened her eyes again.

His were open. He was watching her - or - he was not quite here and she happened to be the thing he landed on.

She reached out and laid her palm at his bare shoulder. "You're okay," she lied. "You're just fine."

His eyes closed. He was unconscious again.

\-----

So much of her resolve had gone completely out the window.

She was learning, quickly, just what she was willing to do when it came to him. 

He was unconscious and she had crawled up right at his side and she had stayed there. She was as bad as the dog. She'd have welcomed the dog right now, actually, because it would have been a warm body and a lick of her fingers, but she was the only pathetic thing in the place.

She had laid her head on her arm and she had extended her fingers to his face and she stroked the bare skin at his jaw where the blood had dried. She'd tried cleaning him up a little, cool washcloth to his face, his chest, and she was afraid she had smeared it mostly, the cloth was stained.

She'd missed a spot here at his ear too. She fingered the earlobe and it was soft. It surprised her somehow, but it was downy here at his lobe and she felt this overwhelming urge to kiss that spot, feel it under her lips.

So she did. She kissed him very lightly, not daring to breathe, and suddenly he groaned and his arm came up and caught her around the waist and he was pulling her down on top of him, managing to get her right in that bruised rib so that she gasped.

"Kate," he mumbled. "Kate, love."

"I'm here," she whispered, dusting her mouth against his chin. His chest was warm under her hands and she braced herself, tried to lift away from him. His arm tightened and he whined, something with her name in it, and she tried again to push back - she couldn't feel good on top of him - but he grunted and tried to turn into her, so she stayed, she stayed very still and he dropped back to the blankets.

"Kate," he sighed. His arm loosened and she didn't try to leave. She laid her ear down to his bare skin and let out a breath and he sighed again, something rattling in his chest. 

She blinked through the hazy fringe of her lashes in her vision, and then she pressed her palm flat to his skin and she listened to his heart beating. She was on the wrong side for it, but she could still hear it.

Maybe he had two hearts. Maybe that's why, despite the odds, he was still alive.

\-----

She woke sweating.

Realized she'd fallen asleep on top of him and he had a fever. She sat up and his good arm fell away from her and she stumbled up to her feet and ran to the kitchen. She was - marginally more with it this time. The sleep had helped her, though it hadn't helped him any.

Kate ran dishtowels under the faucet, got the water warm enough that it wouldn't shock his system, and then she came back and draped them over his chest where she'd been laying, and then along his arms and his neck, then his forehead like this was the 1860s and he was an invalid home from the war.

Maybe so.

She licked her dry lips and peeled away the ice packs from his hand, but thank God, thank God that was - it looked better than it had. She went back to the kitchen and realized she hadn't refilled the ice cube trays, so she did that first, sliding them carefully onto the shelf inside the freezer, and then she took out the bag of frozen fruit she had bought once in case she wanted to make daiquiris in the blender.

Kate brought that back to him and arranged it under his hand so that the worst part of his wrist was in close contact - though this time she remembered to wrap it in the towel first so that she couldn't give him freezer burn. The flush was still in his cheeks but he didn't look dead any longer, and that could only be good.

She should figure out a way to contact someone inside. His father. Someone. The problem was that she knew too much - he'd told her too much - and she didn't have enough to be able to say, yes, he's trustworthy, I can go to him and he'll make sure Castle is okay. She was fucking paranoid now, and calling her Sergeant to say, I have the pilot, he's with me, it's okay wasn't going to cut it.

Her Captain? Captain Montgomery might know what to do. He might. She... but she couldn't because it wasn't her own life she was gambling with, it was his. He had said his life was forfeit in a hospital but she didn't know what that meant - literally or his career was ruined or what? But she had taken it as literally and so she had to limit the circle of people who knew.

Oh, fuck, Lanie would hear about the plane. She would. But would she put it together? Kate and her sergeant had been theorizing bullet wound, clipped in the wing, able to walk for sure. Castle hadn't looked like he could walk let alone fly a fucking plane.

He'd flown a plane to get to her. To those vials in her fridge that he'd left.

No, he had those at his place in Harlem. She knew he did because she'd said, don't forget in the fridge, and he'd said, I already have some.

He had vials of that insulin shit at his own place. Why here? Why die on her kitchen floor?

Kate sat staring at him and not understanding, not comprehending, and then-

oh.

He'd brought a fucking dog back once, of course he'd bring himself back here too. He was - fuck, he had fucking imprinted her like a damn wild thing being brought to tame.

Beckett sighed and leaned in, checked his skin with the back of her hand. Warm but not too bad, all things considering. Not sweating at least. He would need some heavy duty pain pills when he woke, he'd need tylenol just for infection, and he should probably be up on her couch.

Until then, she laid down again, her head on her bent arm, and she traced the sharp thrust of his nose in profile, counting the times his chest rose and fell.

She didn't even hold it against herself when she scooted in a little closer and laid her hand on his good arm, stroked the inside of his bicep where the skin was soft.

She wouldn't fall asleep this time.

\-----

“Hey.”

Castle’s lashes fell and rose again. Warm brown eyes peering down into him, slow blink, shadows, a smile. “Hey,” scraped out of his throat. 

“It’s alive,” she whispered.

He worked his throat to swallow, smiled back at her where he could. His body was heavy, weighted down with something. She was stroking her fingers at his temple, his forehead, smoothing him out.

“Feels good,” he mumbled.

“Yeah?” Her fingers didn’t stop, brushed through his hair so that each nail was like little currents of electricity, pleasant and warm. “You get a whole lot more of this if you don’t die on me.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Deal.”

She chuckled, and he felt like smiling back, and when he opened his eyes again, hers were muted. Shadows around her eyes like bruises. He lifted a hand and she went very still, very quiet, and he furled his fingers out along her jaw and touched her lips-

An angry black was cut vividly across his wrist and he blinked. “Ow,” he husked, staring at his hand against the pale moon of her skin. 

“Yeah, I bet,” she whispered. Her hands came up and cradled his, so soft that tears came to his chest, blurred and thick, and she lowered his hand, his arm to the floor. Cold. Freezing cold, death grip around his wrist.

“Fuck,” he slurred. “Cold.”

Her face twisted and she hovered over him, hair brushing her chin and falling towards him like maybe he was drowning in it.

“Don’t try to move.”

“‘S cold, Becks. So cold.”

“Yeah, love, it’s cold. Keep it from swelling.” Fingers drifted across his cheekbones and his eyes opened, vision eclipsed by the rise of her hand. She moved and a kiss fell just under his eye.

He hummed something in response, tried to, and she smiled for him. God, she was so beautiful. “So glad you’re here,” he sighed. “Glad it’s you. ‘M lucky.”

“Yeah,” she whispered. “Not many girls would put up with you dying on their kitchen floors.”

“What girls?” he mumbled, struggling to lift his lashes. “What - where’s my dog?”

“At my dad’s,” she said, a trace of something in her voice. “Stop talking, Richard. Stop trying to use your hand. Just lay there.”

“You with me?” he sighed. A nice silence fell then, comforting, warm. He had something to remember but it wasn’t sticking around for him. His wrist had jagged teeth in it, they were black teeth; he’d seen ‘em. Big black teeth. “Dog bite me?”

“No, baby, hush.” Fingers along his forehead, stroking. “Shhh. You’re fine, you’re just fine.”

His mouth was hard to move. Words jumbled up on his tongue.

“Hush, love. Stop trying so hard. Let yourself sleep. You can sleep, I’ve got you.”

“Knew you would.”

\-----

She catalogued the rest of his body as he slept, ran her fingers over his skin. She hadn’t thought of it until she’d seen the fresh blood seeping into the blanket, but then she’d realized it was the melting ice running pink rivers.

She started with his head, though she knew Lanie had done it first, right off, before she’d started stitching the knife wound on his wrist. God, it still looked like someone had tried to cut off his hand; she couldn’t imagine what had really happened to him.

His hair was gummy with dried blood, but she only found a small scratch at his nape that had already healed over. A bruise behind his ear made her pause, but it wasn’t hot, and the color made it look old - yellowed and fading. 

She got one hand under his right shoulder and lifted him slowly, ran her other hand down as far as she could, checking for the heat of infection or blood. She did the other side, panting now with the effort of moving his unconscious body. He was heavy like this, sacked out, but his breathing was regular.

His chest was so broad, so strong, even asleep. Her fingers tingled as she spread her hands over him, she couldn’t help pressing her thumbs against his nipples as she went down, closed her eyes as she rested her palms at his pelvic bones.

He was so warm. It went right through her, made her alive in places she hadn’t realized had been shut down. What the hell did she do if he died on her?

Her hands froze at that lovely valley below his abs, her body wracked with a shudder.

But she unbuttoned his jeans and pulled the zipper down slowly, certain that if anything was going to wake him, it would be that. He didn’t even sigh. She withdrew her hands and eased away from him, moved down by his waist, chewing on her lip as she surveyed her half-undressed man.

She straddled his hips wide, knees planted on the floor, and she gently eased his jeans off his hips. His mouth dropped open, but he slept on, and she had to work from the bottom to pull the jeans off, tugging the cuffs, working them off slowly. 

He’d gone commando.

Fuck, he was hard to undress when he wasn’t bouncing in the middle of her bed and trying to get her bra off her. Completely naked before her now. Bare and bruised and a little ragged. It put a sharp ache in her chest that made her lean towards him, nearly sinking straight down at his feet to sob like a child.

But no.

Not tonight.

She dumped his tattered jeans to one side and resumed exploration, telling herself she ought to know these things about him anyway, the exact rise of his knee, the length of his big toe. She checked for damage, but she also just memorized, trailing her fingers in the dust of soft hair on his calves.

God, it was unmanning her, these little things. The ridge of scars on his shin and the bruise on the top of his foot, the girth of his thighs - fuck, his thighs spoke to her something fierce - and up, up to his cock nestled between his legs.

She touched him, memory blooming, need like a taste on her tongue. She buried her hands in the wiry hair around his cock and spread her fingers up over his hipbones, her own body following her path. At his chest she had reached the full length of her ability to balance over him and she hovered there, breathing hard, staring at his dark, sharp face.

Kate gave it up, laid out over him, his body under hers and moving with his breaths, just long enough that it seeped into her, pressed something of his essential oils into her clothing.

She moved off of him, appalled, humiliated, more than a little desperate to have him open his eyes again.

A desperate ploy. And it hadn’t worked at all. Not even a flicker.

Kate unfolded a blanket and smoothed it out, up to his waist so he wouldn’t overheat. As she leaned over him, her head pulsed with a different kind of heat and she winced, tilting her chin up.

Well, fuck. She should probably ice her eye too.

\-----

Castle woke wet.

Why was he sleeping in a puddle of water? Murky wet around his left arm, something damp on his chest near his belly button, a quick cool puff of air that made his abs clench.

He chuckled, tickled, and got an elbow under him to see Kate had fallen asleep on him. One of her legs was twined between his and up over his hip and her face was mashed into his stomach, hair splayed around her head. Wet. She must be drooling something fierce.

It was funny.

He tried to lift his left hand to prod her awake, but he felt it then - wet and cold, numb. He glanced down and saw the ragged line of neat stitches against the mottled skin.

Oh. That’s right.

But wait. Hadn’t he been in Africa, off the Somalian border? Holy shit, he’d - flown here. He had flown a plane here to find Beckett because - because - because his father couldn’t be trusted.

Fuck.

Castle sank back to the bed and winced, catching on that it wasn’t a bed. They were on the damn living room floor. Fuck his back ached. He twitched a knee and tried to wake her up.

“Becks. Come on, Kate. Wake up, baby. Kate.”

She gasped and jerked upright and he blanched at the look on her face. At her face. “Who hit you?” he rasped, lifting up again and reaching for her cheek.  
She flinched and ducked, caught his elbow with both of her hands. “Your wrist. Stop - fuck, stop moving your arm.”

“My wrist is fine. What happened to your face? Was it one of those assholes on the corner?”

She blinked and then her lips twisted, eyes averted. “Yeah. Something like that. Stop, Rick. Let go of me. You need to lie down.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “Well, close to anyway. Baby, your face.” He frowned and lifted his hand again but ow. Ow, that hurt. “Fuck, that does hurt. Who did the stitches? Or was that you?”

“Lanie,” she said softly.

“Lanie?” He didn’t know her, did he? No, wait. “The dead body doctor? Oh, gross.”

She grunted and lifted an eyebrow, but it was the bruised one, and she stopped, wincing again. “Lie down, will you?”

“Can we move this party to your bed?” He gestured with his bad hand and it did hurt. It really hurt. Fuck. This had been a bad one too; he had vague memories of the needle shaking as he’d tried to inject himself in the thigh for the program. The pills - had he taken them like he was supposed to? Vitamins would be good about now.

“Move this... can you even stand?” she hissed.

Castle drew his legs up and she fell off of him, but he got his feet under him and he was standing. “Yeah, looks like.”

“God, you’re...” She shook her head and took his good arm by the elbow. “Just go slowly, you asshole. No sudden movements.”

“Yeah, that’s good advice,” he muttered, feeling it in his head now too. Swaying. And now the ache had started in his head and he thought - there had been an attack. He had been attacked in her apartment after the shot. “Was there - were there things missing?”  
“What?”  
“In your apartment? I think I fought someone.”

“Fought someone?” she echoed. Bleak. Her whole face was bleak. Her eye looked-

“Oh, God,” he choked, lurching to a stop. “Oh, God, I punched you.”

She did him the courtesy of keeping her mouth shut, her eyes level on his. “You did.”

“Oh, God, I’m gonna be sick,” he moaned, leaning forward as his stomach heaved. 

“No, you won’t,” she insisted fiercely. “Stand up. You’re going to bed. You’re not throwing up in my living room. You already bled all over my kitchen.”

Castle straightened, feeling that like a fist to his guts, and he stepped towards her hallway, sucking down another breath that didn’t want to come. She’d been icing down her face when he woke, that was the water puddled and still damp on his abs.

God, he’d punched her in the face. Fuck, that did not feel good. That did not feel right at all. He was really going to be sick. He was going to have to throw up or else his stomach would wrench open inside him.

“Kate. Kate, I-”

“In the bathroom, Rick, fuck, in the bathroom, go-”

He lunged and hit the door; it bounced back and he was already on his knees before the toilet.

She had the lid up even as he leaned over and gave up his stomach.

She was still holding on to him.

\-----


	3. Chapter 3

“No, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.” Kate kept her arm slung around his shoulders, tried to ease him back slowly from the toilet. He groaned and lifted his hand to his face again; she pulled his arm back down. “You shouldn’t use your hand, Castle. Not yet.”

He wasn’t left-handed - at least, not that she remembered - and so this constant urge he had to use the damn thing was annoying. She tugged his arm down again and pressed his elbow against his chest.

“I know you feel like shit, but if you keep using your arm, I’m going to tape it to your chest.”

He grunted and shifted off of her, pressed his cheek to the rim of her bathtub, his eyes closing. She waited a moment to be sure he wasn’t going to throw up again, to be sure he didn’t try to wipe his mouth with his freshly-stitched hand, and then she stood up slowly.

Her knees ached. She’d fallen at his side when he’d gone down to hug the toilet, and she had bruises to match her other bruises.

“Your eye,” he murmured. His eyes stayed closed, pressed into the bathtub’s porcelain as he huddled on the floor. “I punched you.”

“You didn’t mean to,” she muttered. “Get over it. Shit happens.”

She rummaged in the linen closet for a washcloth, moved to the sink to run water. Suddenly his right arm snaked around her leg and hung on, and his head came to rest at her thigh, his whole body leaning against her.

“I’m so sorry,” he sighed. He sounded like he’d been kicked. “Baby, I-”

She reached down and gripped his hair at the top of his head, yanked a little sharply to tilt his eyes up to her. “Shut up, Richard. I don’t care. It’ll heal.” 

Kate wrung out the excess water from the washcloth and carefully squatted down with him on the floor, passed the wet cloth over his eyes. Castle sighed and canted into her touch, and then she had his whole body pressing into hers, his good arm around her neck as he embraced her.

She slid her arms around him too, her knees bracketing his ribs in their awkward position, the washcloth slapped wetly against her shoulder where he’d buried his face. She hugged him back, turned her mouth to his neck to brush her lips over the rasp of his scruff.

“You smell like vomit,” she muttered. “Can you get up? Make it to our bed?”

“Our bed?” he graveled. “Mm, can always do that.”

She flushed, felt the bright red flames in her cheeks, closed her eyes. “I-” Only she had nothing to say to explain herself except that it was better than the kitchen floor.

“Give me a second right here,” he mumbled then. He was leaning hard against her, and she wasn’t entirely sure she could give him that second.

“You have to sit up,” she said. “Richard. Sit up. You can’t stay like this. You need to be in a bed. Lying down. Not draped over me.”

“Yeah.” He shuddered and a sound went through him that made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. She clutched him a little tighter, unease in her guts, and Castle seemed to faint in slow-motion, sliding from her shoulder to her breast and then down to her lap in one long glide.

And then he was a heap of bone and flesh pressed against her thighs and she was contorted on the bathroom floor.

She had no idea how she was going to get him into bed.

\-----

“Quit poking me, woman.”

Kate chuckled - couldn’t help it; it was mostly relief - but she also didn’t stop poking him. She leaned in closer and blew in his face. “Castle. Castle.”

“I’m so tired,” he mumbled. And then tried to turn over.

Castle fell right off her lap and landed with a smack on the tile, his nose mainly, she thought, and she winced as he yelped.

“Fuck. That hurt. What are you trying to do to me?”

“I was trying to wake you kindly,” she sighed. “You passed out on top of me.”

He turned his head and opened one eye, his cheek still plastered to the tile, his stitched wrist looking livid in the bathroom lights. She didn’t want those stitches anywhere near whatever germs lurked on her bathroom floor or on the toilet after his sickness.

“Castle,” she prompted.

“I can stand up,” he promised. “Just give me a moment-”

“No,” she insisted. “You said that last time and then crashed into me. Get up. Right now. You’re too heavy for me to move alone.”

Something dark crossed over his face and suddenly he was right up - knees under him, body towering upwards, his skin sickly but definitely standing. She blinked in surprise and then scrambled to her feet, staying close.

“Can you walk?”

“I can walk,” he nodded. “Just - lead the way. So I don’t fall on you if I-”

“If you’re going to fall, let me help,” she hissed. “At least let me get-”

“No. No, you shouldn’t have to-” He held her off with a hand at her shoulder, inelegant and not exactly as forceful as he could have been. She ducked under his arm and got in at his side, her shoulder up into his armpit for stability. She knew how to do this - she was a pro at this - she’d helped her father into a thousand cabs-

Oh. Was that why he suddenly didn’t want her help? 

“You’re a fucking idiot,” she hissed. “Let me help you. I’ve had the practice and you’re nothing like him, okay? I know the difference.”

Castle’s face washed over with shame and he ducked his head, avoiding her eyes. She ignored it, starting forward out of the bathroom with Castle draped against her side; he obviously needed help staying steady. He’d never have made it alone.

What a guy. It was ridiculous. Wasn’t like she’d hold this against him; he’d had his hand-

“What happened to you anyway?” Castle rumbled something she didn’t catch, and she took a deeper breath as they navigated the doorway and out into the hall. “I know you flew a plane to get here. But from where?”

“Somalia,” he sighed.

“And what happened,” she repeated. 

Castle lurched down the hall and seemed unwilling to give her an answer.

“Richard.”

“A test. It was a fucking test. I’m sure I failed.”

“That’s not an answer for how you managed to get your wrist butchered.”

He flinched and his shoulder hit the door as they passed into her bedroom, but he didn’t open his mouth, didn’t seem to care to enlighten her. She wasn’t cool with that. He’d unloaded his shit on her from day one, all that stuff about the CIA, about his previous missions, and now here she was having to deal with it, and he was close-mouthed?

No.

She slung him towards the bed and he bounced a little, grunting. 

“Never mind that you flew a fucking plane loaded with cocaine into New York City, Castle, never mind that you dropped dead on my kitchen floor rather than - oh a thousand other things you could have done. I’m letting that slide right now. What I am asking is - what the fuck happened to your hand?”

She yanked his feet up into the bed and the covers down, and Castle rolled slowly towards the middle and then flat out on his chest. His eyes closed.

She sat down near his shoulder and eased his arm out from where he’d curled it up at his chest. She kept her fingers at his inside wrist where the skin was still intact, avoiding the top of his wrist where she’d seen the white and gristle of his bone earlier this evening. The black stitches were gruesome.

“Castle.”

“I was boarded by pirates and they tried to chop my hand off with a - scimitar. Should have been a machete. I don’t know where they got the scimitar.”

Kate stared at his wrist, his blackened, mutilated wrist, the puffy fingers where the swelling had started again, the harsh knots of the stitches, the ragged flesh. “God.”

“It was my own damn fault for trusting him,” Castle muttered. At least, that was what she thought he said - his face was buried in her pillow and it was muffled.

She had no idea what had happened, only that he had come here to her, damaged, half-dead, needing help.

And she was being an asshole to him. Damn it. He had nearly died on her kitchen floor and she was cursing him out?

Kate leaned in and caught the edge of the sheet, pulled it up over his naked body. His hand was still in her lap, and she circled her arm around his pillow and laid her palm against the top of his shoulder blade, absorbing the heat from his skin.

His head turned and one eye looked up at her.

She rubbed her thumb over the inside of his wrist. “I need to get you some more ice, pack it around your stitches. Can you be good and not move? Not an inch, Castle.”

He blinked and his eye slowly closed.

She figured that was answer enough.

\-----

He was burning up again, but every time she stuck the thermometer in his mouth, it read 99. Which wasn’t really a fever, not when it came to Richard Castle. He was always a furnace, and in fact, 99 didn’t seem hot enough for the usual state of his body in her bed.

Beckett adjusted the ice packs around his wrist and tried not to shift the melted bags too much. She had used every dishcloth she owned to wrap around freezer bags and ziploc bags of ice, but his fingers were puffy. And blue, though that might be caused by the ice and not poor circulation.

You swear to me he moved every finger?

She had thought so. She could’ve sworn to it but now she was tasting the edges of panic in her mouth. He hadn’t woken up since passing out in her bed four hours ago. It was nearly dawn and she was half-insensible with exhaustion herself, and his breath was tickling her belly in a really fucking nice way - if he hadn’t been unconscious.

Okay, even passed out and maybe dying, it was still really nice. And arousing, she could admit that too. Her legs were cramped, her ribs ached, but she was debating the wisdom of leaning back and sliding her hand into her pants and under her panties and just - getting it over with.

Rubbing it out, both the arousal and her need, and hopefully it would ease some of her tension too.

She thought that was a really bad idea though. She had this sense of herself that was warning her - if she did that, never mind how filthy and degraded and out of control that meant she was - just, if she did that, she was going to let loose something she couldn’t get back.

She tasted panic lurking at the back of her throat, but more than that, with the panic came - grief.

She absolutely couldn’t go back there. She couldn’t. Damn him for taking her this close in the first place, but it would be worse if she let go.

But, God, she itched for it. She ached everywhere and between her legs especially, and he was pressing down against her lap where she - held him. Held him, fuck, she was cradling him, and she couldn’t seem to stop.

Every time she tried to get out of bed and go lie down on the couch and get some real sleep, she found herself coming right back in here. To be reassured, to touch, to listen to his heart, to take his temperature one more time because he was just so hot under her fingers.

Fuck it.

Kate leaned back against her headboard and withdrew her hand from the ice pack at his wrist. Her fingertips were clammy as they traveled under her t-shirt, already wet trails on her skin as she pushed under her leggings.

She moaned when she first touched herself. She could feel his breath on the back of her hand, his heat against her body, and she clutched his shoulder with her free hand, eyes slamming shut.

She was wet between her legs. She’d been aroused for hours, feeling his hard body against hers, and she didn’t even have to imagine it was his fingers touching her. She just touched, slick and warm and fast. She just rubbed against her clit and along her folds, up and down, relentless, not bothering to tease.

Her thighs clenched first, a ripple through her belly, and then her womb contracted.

Her orgasm tightened into a fist and slugged her deep in the guts, making her grunt and bow over her hand, draped at his head, and still his warm breath gusted over her thigh.

She sank back to the headboard, sucking in air, and she was too tired to move her hand. She tried to just breathe normally, but after a few gasping moments, she felt the tears.

It hurt to cry. Wrenched out of her bruised eye and sliding down her face. Her fingers still against her cunt spasmed and she jerked her hand out, making a fist and rubbing at her cheeks.

Her knee came up reflexively, her body curling in for protection, but it caught the edge of Castle’s shoulder and shifted him.

And of course he woke up. He opened his eyes and first thing, first damn thing, he saw her crying over him.

\-----

His brain wasn’t making good connections, so maybe it was just instinct.

Castle lurched upward and turned to take her, capturing Kate against his chest and sinking back down to the bed. She grunted something against him, everything was wet, but he shifted his legs over hers and trapped her under him, lowered his head to the pillow beside her face, eyes closing.

Her chest stuttered underneath his shoulder and pec.

She sounded like a fish at his ear.

Wait.

Crying?

Castle opened an eye, blinked in the weird grey light. She was crying alright. And her face was bruised - oh, fuck, right, he’d done that to her. He wasn’t a good patient. “They usually put me in restraints,” he garbled out.

She turned her head away from him with a sucked in breath.

“Like velcro restraints,” he clarified. “They don’t hurt. But it keeps me from mauling the nurses.”

“Like you maul me?”

He grinned and licked her jaw where the tears had collected. She shivered. He could smell her sex like he had in his dream. Maybe it was just good memories, being in her bed, so that of course touching her intimately would be on his mind, despite how much his hand hurt. “I maul you in an entirely different way, Beckett. When I give you a black eye doing that, well then we can call it mauling.”

“You’re a fucking asshole.”

“I really am, especially when I wake up from a fucking hot dream about eating you out. But instead you’re just crying. That’s not any fun for me.” He touched his tongue to her cheek and sucked at her skin, making the salt disappear.

She’d gone very very still. “Dream?” she said faintly.

“I don’t have those dreams about the usual nurses,” he promised, touching the corner of her eye with his mouth. He was trying to avoid the throbbing in his wrist, the way his skin felt too tight, and hot. Kate was in his arms, Kate was curling a hand at his elbow as he skimmed the tears from her eye.

She shivered and he let his tongue play against the fringe of her lashes, erotic and strange. His body was pulsing with heat, exhaustion had him by the teeth and was dragging him down, but it felt so good to touch her face, to feel her against him.

The injection always knocked him out for a good long while. Four hours for sure, but he’d taken two of those vials this time, certain he’d need whatever good shit was in there to help his hand. Fuck, his hand really really hurt.

“I’d do something about my dream,” he murmured, “but I don’t think you want my slimy wrist holding you down.”

“Fuck,” she breathed out.

“I know,” he sighed. “Disappointing.” He nibbled at the skin of her cheek, tasting her, and it was so good. Fuck, it was so good to be with her again. He’d missed the hell out of prickly Kate Beckett. “Even your tears taste good.”

She huffed. “Why are you so very awake?”

“I’m not,” he promised. “I’m a little pain-happy. Registers like drugs sometimes. I did tell you they usually restrain me for this stuff, didn’t I?”

Her arms came around him then, her head turning into his so that their eyes were suddenly very close together. He got a soft kiss on his nose that reminded him of just how much his wrist hurt in comparison. “They restrain you?”

“To keep me from hurting people,” he whispered. “I don’t ever want to hurt you, Kate. I love you.”

She stared at him, her arms like a vise around his shoulders, but his wrist was throbbing in a really bad way. He had to close his eyes but it didn’t help; that agony was the only thing he could find, only thing he could feel, his own heart beating in his wrist.

“Rick?”

“I don’t feel so good,” he admitted, pressing his forehead down to her chin and gulping in a breath. He was dizzy and he was lying down. Maybe she should... maybe she ought to restrain him, for real. Maybe that would... whoa, shit. He was going to fall.

“Rick.”

Her voice came from a long way off, and he tried to turn and catch it, but it put him entirely off-balanced.

“Gonna pass out.”

He was being dragged down the cliffside at a break-neck speed. He was plunging right over into the darkness.

\-----

Her heart was pounding.

Her ribs were getting crushed under the weight of him.

She couldn’t catch her breath.

I don’t ever want to hurt you, Kate. I-

“Well, fuck, you’re killing me right now,” she muttered, worming her way out from under him. She had to be so careful of him, try not to catch his arm, try not to wake him, try not to think of-

He was drugged - whatever he’d injected himself with - and Lanie hadn’t been able to give him anything for pain so that added to it, and it was clear he wasn’t exactly with it when he’d been talking to her. Nothing he had said could be taken seriously. He was usually restrained? Right.

She swallowed hard and managed to free herself, but she didn’t know how long that would last. He was a restless patient; he was lightning fast and he didn’t move in the direction she expected, so she was always getting caught.

I don’t ever want to hurt you, Kate. I love-

Fuck. Fuck, no, she really couldn’t take that seriously. That was - fuck, some Somalian pirate had tried to chop off his hand. That was some serious fucking trauma. If she was sent to therapy for her fucking attitude, for her single-minded focus, then Castle, fuck, Castle was a field day after this.

Did he have a therapist? She thought she remembered something about... about a panel? He’d said the debrief team went through the usual questions, he’d said... ‘a thorough debrief - you know how they love to analyze everything to death.’ At the time, she had thought, no, I don’t have any idea what you mean. But they’d been in the middle of some fucking hot sex - she definitely remembered that - and her hands had been cuffed over her head and all she’d been able to think about was how she couldn’t touch him.

Why had that come up?

Oh, her hands cuffed over her head. He’d said something about how hot she made him, and she’d said, all the girls you chain up make you hot. She’d been snarky that night, yeah, because he’d shown up at two in the morning after two months of absolutely no contact, shown up and walked on in after picking her damn lock (second time she’d changed the locks on him), and he had handcuffed her before she’d even woken up.

All the girls you chain up make you hot.

And he had laughed, because he was a fucking asshole, and he’d said, No, baby, the therapists make sure of that.

So he did have therapists. 

He was a fucking asshole, and a damn big bully, and he was cocky and arrogant and annoying, but fuck, somehow she felt a lot better knowing he had a therapist. She’d woken him with nightmares a couple times, but he had never woken her.

Guy tried to chop off his hand, Castle had run to her, and he’d said something bitter and dark about a test.

I never want to hurt you, Kate. I love-

Fuck. Fuck, she couldn’t - she had to get some sleep. She needed to sleep. She was getting punch-drunk and she actually did have to make an appointment with a therapist tomorrow and get cleared for duty again.

God, she couldn’t - there wasn’t room in her life for a spy who brought this shit home with him. He was supposed to do his job out there, and then when he needed a little release, when she was hungry and aching again, then they came together like gunpowder. A little reaction, a lot of kinky fucking, and then they were off again.

It worked that way. Bleeding out on her kitchen floor did not work.

Beckett finally got out from under his heavy body, half-falling out of bed to do so. She stumbled back and stood there in only leggings and a t-shirt, hair mussed from air-drying, and a naked man dead to the world in her bed.

She took a pillow, turned her back on him, and stalked out to the couch.

\-----

Castle woke sweating, drenched in it, and he rolled away from the sun and into the cool, empty space in the sheets. 

Ow.

Ow, fuck.

Agony. It was - fuck - agony. 

Castle groaned and opened his eyes, but the room began to spin around him. 

“Hey, shit, don’t do that. Castle, baby, hey. Hey, you need to get off your arm. Castle. Come on, love, I know it hurts, I know it hurts really badly, but you can’t pass out.”

He was going to be sick.

“Come on, come on. Castle, hey. No, not-uh, you’re not passing out right now. Move, you need to move, love. Get off your arm.”

He could smell her close, feel her hands on his shoulder and then under him, pushing. Beckett shoved on him and he flopped onto his back, into the sun again, sweat making him clammy and nauseous, but the pain had dulled to a simple teeth-grating ache.

“Ah, fuck,” he whispered.

Hands on his face, cool hands, fingers touching. He thought he might cry.

“Hey, love, shh. You’re okay, you’re okay. You just rolled over on your wrist.”

He opened his eyes.

“Beautiful,” he sighed, drinking her in. Dark hair in waves, thick, luxurious, eyes so big. Her mouth, she was saying something to him, her mouth was such a wonderful shape. How had he never noticed how perfect it was? The arch of her lips and the touch of her tongue against her teeth.

“Castle.” Low voice, slow, nudging him. “Castle, hey. You with me? I need you with me.”

“My hand hurts,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, baby, I know it does. You’re burning up too. I need you to drink some water for me.” 

He floated for a second, trying to parse the language. Was it Farsi? He was learning Farsi right now. 

“Rick? I’ve got a glass of water right here and you really need to drink it. Strongest thing I got here is some old percocet after I had some dental work done. Do you want a couple?”

What was she even saying? His Farsi was really bad.

“Castle? Hey, love, come on. I need you to focus. I have some pain pills-”

“No,” he got out, shaking his head against the pillow. His brain rattled. He had to close his eyes, oh, but they were already closed. Shit, that was not good. He felt really bad. Crusty inside.

“Castle, Castle, open your eyes, baby. Come on. Please, love, please open your eyes.”

He cracked an eyelid, but only because there was a strain in her voice that got to him, clear to his guts, and she was really close this time. Her fingers were curling over his cheek and his neck, down to his collarbone, her body hunched over him.

“Hey, hey, there, Rick. Okay, okay, I know you feel bad, but we gotta get something in you. Water. Tylenol for your fever. Pain pills would be really good right now.”  
“Can’t,” he scraped out, closing his eyes again. “Not allowed pain pills. Not good.”

“Are you allergic to a certain kind? Maybe I could-”

“All of ‘em,” he murmured. “Make me - bad person. Go crazy.”

“Okay, okay, love, shhh, it’s okay. But you need to drink some water at least. Take something for the fever.”

“Fever?”

“You’re really hot.”

He grinned and opened an eye. “That’s what she said.”

She snorted and her head bowed, her hair hiding her face. He was really tired; injection tired. He couldn’t remember how long it had been. 

“Time’s it, Kate?”

She lifted her head and he realized she was crawling into the bed, coming in close. “It’s nearly eleven.”

“Morning?”

“In the morning,” she confirmed.

His math was bad with this headache, but it was much more than eight hours. He’d never slept this long before. “Usually not this bad,” he mumbled, closing his eyes. He just - he felt so tired. “Usually recover faster.”

“Hey, love, you lost a lot blood, you know? A lot of blood. That’s going to take some time.”

He was having trouble figuring out where he was. In bed? She was all over him, her skin to his skin, the wet touch of water on his chest, and he moved his hand and felt towels, soaked through, towels piled up on him.

“What?” he mumbled, trying to open his eyes.

“You need to take some tylenol and drink a couple glasses of water. Please, Rick. You gotta open your eyes and stay with me long enough to drink some water at the very least. Your fever-”

“Said I’m hot.”

“That is so an hour ago,” she said. And then she slapped him. He gasped and his eyes sprang open.

“What-?” he croaked.

“You with me? Castle. You have to stay awake and take this. Drink the water. You won’t let me take you to the hospital, then you have to drink a full glass of water and take the tylenol.”

He blinked and stared at her, but he shifted to sit up a little and reached for the glass. He grunted and twitched, realized his left arm was slung against his chest, practically taped to his chest, and he was covered in wet towels.

Fever. Right. Fuck. This couldn’t be good.

He blinked and glanced up at her, completed the movement of his right hand to the glass, took it from her. She didn’t let go, which turned out to be a good thing, and she held it to his lips, helped him as he swallowed.

She removed the glass, tapped his chin. Castle opened automatically, felt the pills on his tongue, four of them, and she gave him the glass back. It took effort to swallow those pills, and that couldn’t be good either.

“Okay, much better. That’s good, baby. Very good.” She leaned in and kissed his cheek, he felt her relief in the breath that scattered across his skin. Her palm touched his neck, he got another kiss that felt brusque, like she couldn’t help it but wished she hadn’t.

“I should - take another injection,” he said, working the words out of his mouth. “This is - this is too long.”

“What?” she whispered. Her hands stroked his cheeks and down to his chest, his arm, like she was making sure he was all there.

“I need another injection. I took the two I had left here. But - but I think I need more. This isn’t right.”

She met his eyes with a troubled glance; her teeth chewed on her bottom lip. “I don’t think you should be injecting yourself-”

“It’s the program,” he interrupted, closing his eyes a second. He didn’t know how to explain. “It’s what I need after something like this. It’s - like a boost.”

“A boost?”

“Pain pills make me - do bad things to me. But this is good,” he said, trying to find words in a head that felt split open. “My father usually...”

“You said he couldn’t be trusted,” she offered, raising an eyebrow.

“I did?”

She nodded. “Among other things. But - yeah, probably nonsense. You were in and out of it all night and this morning.”

“Oh.” He blinked and tried to hold on to his thought. The program. Castle shifted forward and tried to put a foot to the floor. “I need to - get up.”

“What?!”

He leaned forward and her hands caught his shoulders, shoved back. 

“No fucking way.”

“Kate. Kate, I gotta-”

“You are not getting up. You’ve had one glass of water in the last twelve plus hours and the last time you were awake, you weren’t even speaking English. Sit the fuck back down.”

He kept pushing, got himself on his feet despite Kate shoving him back. “This would be easier if you didn’t-”

“No. No. Not-uh. Holy fucking - no.” She blocked him as he tried to step forward, and yeah, yeah, okay, the world was spinning a little.

“Kate, I gotta get that injection. It’s the only thing I can take. Let me-”

“No!”

He grunted when she plowed into him, and then he felt his knees buckling with an entirely unknown sensation - collapse.

Castle fell hard back on the bed, jolting every bone in his body, and he groaned with the pain, his eyes rolling back, blackness tunneling hard into him.

“You made me do that. That one is on you. Stay the fuck down.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he scraped out, panting hard.

“Fuck,” she moaned. “Castle.”

He was gonna throw up. Oh, God. He was going to vomit.

“Kate,” he gritted out, sweating panic rising in him now. 

“Where’s the damn injection, Castle. I’ll go get it. Fuck, fuck, you can’t do this to me. Where is it? I’m going right now.”

He was going to pass out.

\-----


	4. Chapter 4

It had taken her an hour to get it out of him, the whole thing, or well, what she hoped was the whole thing. Enough to give her something positive to do to help at least.

She’d gotten two more glasses of water down him, and she felt better about that too. Not good enough to leave him with an easy heart, but good enough that she figured, with luck, he wouldn’t be dead when she returned.

Beckett shrugged on a jacket and pushed her keys into her pocket, her phone following after. She wandered over to her bed and stood there a moment, watching the man passed out between her sheets, studying his breathing.

The wrist looked all right, but it was the fever that worried her. The thermometer was giving her strange readings, so that she figured it was broken somehow, the damn digital strips weren’t any better either, but he had to be hotter than 100.

Maybe not. Maybe she was letting panic crowd out her stronger logic. Maybe her fucking heart was scrambled up and making her stupid.

That was probably true.

Kate bent over and dusted her fingers over the shoulder of his bad arm and then down his bicep, reassured by the coolness of his skin and the strength of his muscle below.

She stood up, eyes narrowed down at him. “Just don’t die on me, Richard.”

She moved away from the bed and took her personal weapon off the bureau, pushed it into the holster under her jacket. She usually had it in an ankle holster, not up against her ribs, and the weight of it felt strange.

But she’d been suspended for five days and her police-issue was gone and this was the best she was gonna get.

Beckett left her apartment, locking the door behind her, feeling deeply vulnerable as she went down her stairs. She took the steps at a run, pushed out onto the street with a shove the door didn’t require. She came up short on the sidewalk, surprised at the bright sunshine and the joy on people’s faces as they walked, the epitome of a new spring day.

Not warm enough to take the jacket off, but after their long winter, warm enough to bring smiles to the surface. She alone felt cold inside, felt winter still clinging to her bones.

It’d been that way since he had left this last time. She wasn’t stupid, and she wasn’t interested in fooling herself. Maybe she’d been blind to it the past year and a half, but the darkness that clung to her even now, even in the sunlight, proved she couldn’t bury her head in the sand any longer.

As she walked to the subway station, she tried to bring out every hidden thing, shake it off, lay it flat in the sunlight. She hunched her shoulders against the cool touch of winter wind that kissed her neck, but she didn’t let it pull her out of her introspection.

She needed him.

Now, was that so bad?

She felt a little wretched at the thought of needing him, but she wasn’t sure anything could really be done about it right now. When he was better, she’d work on getting her shit together and figuring this thing out, closing it down, but right now she was doing good to just exist in it, keep breathing, function as his fever crept higher.

He was a spy, and she was okay with that - she was a detective and people were needed to do their jobs, difficult as they were, because life required it. That was all. This was a fucked up world, and people like herself and Castle were what made the thing work at all, when it did work, which wasn’t that often.

So he had a hard job and she did too, and neither of their lives were exactly secured. No one’s was, really, if it came down to it, and she was - she’d always been working to be okay with that, but honestly, fuck, she wasn’t.

She could be honest about that now, here in the light, breathing in the cement and thawing air. Her mother had been murdered viciously and she wasn’t okay with a world that worked like that, and part of why she was a cop was because she thought she could fix it.

Somehow. In her little corner of the world, she thought she could slap a band-aid on the great wounds, the bleeding and puss-filled and ragged-skinned wounds.

The damn world needed stitches. Or a fucking amputation - just cut it off. Gangrene had gotten to it. She didn’t think she could do this any more.

Without him. Without at least having a few nights in which she could hide herself in him. Sex and feeling, and it wasn’t making love but it was the closest she’d ever get to it.

He was perfect for her in that - he wasn’t here to make her crazy, wasn’t even here long enough to disappoint or dismay, and she could kick him out when she needed no distractions.

But oh, as a distraction, he was beautifully, intensely distracting.

She really liked that. And she needed it, and she was admitting it now in the open air.

She needed someone like him to distract her from the gaping wounds. 

For him to be wounded meant she was too, and that the world was uglier than she liked, but there it was.

The subway station was before her now and she stopped thinking, turned it off like a switch, heading down into the dark bowels of the earth to take the red line out to Harlem.

He had an apartment there. He had some kind of medicine he said would help. It was a measure of her own desperation that she was leaving him at all in his condition - and worse - for something as unsubstantial as liquid in a vial.

\-----

There’d been a camera in his apartment.

Okay, yes, she’d been snooping. Sue her. She hadn’t even known he had a place in the city, not a permanent place; he’d always made out like he was camping with her because he didn’t have anywhere else to go. Clearly a lie. One told to get into her pants, so she was willing to let it slide, but she’d been eager to search out his place for herself.

It was frustratingly bare. Sparse didn’t even begin to describe it. He had nothing. A chair in the living room, no television, a bed in the bedroom without even sheets on it - bare mattress - and then she’d been curious.

She’d gone hunting for the sheets, that was all.

She had left the silver cases in the freezer and she’d shoved the packet of pills into her pocket, and she’d just done a little skulking through his place to look for bedsheets. If he didn’t even have those, then it wasn’t a place at all.

She had found them. She had also found the camera in the bathroom. It had been very cleverly hidden, and it was only because she was looking for that kind of thing that she’d found it. 

She’d been looking for it in the bedroom, remembering how easily Castle had installed cameras for ‘security’ in her place, how pointed he’d been about not having one in their bedroom - her bedroom - and so it had occurred to her that he might have cameras in his place for certain... things.

But she’d been looking and she found one in the bathroom closet.

Which made no sense unless the entire apartment was wired for lights and sound, but that couldn’t be true because why? 

A spy’s apartment. Why wouldn’t it?

There had to be other cameras in the place that she hadn’t been able to detect with her untrained eye. Well, moderately trained. But what worried her wasn’t the fact that a spy’s apartment had cameras, what worried her was the fact that Castle hadn’t seemed to know about them.

She chewed on that the whole walk back to her building, two little silver cases of two vials each in her hands, like some kind of damn diplomatic pouch.

Castle had said one time that he’d like to fuck her on the kitchen counter at his place because it was the perfect height. She remembered it very distinctly, as she did all of his promises about sex. He had a really good imagination; he came up with the best ideas, and the more imaginative it was, the less likely he’d done it before.

Which meant, with someone else who wasn’t her.

Which she heard, she got it, she knew how that thought sounded. But fuck it, she liked being the one he fucked, her and no one else, she liked being special. So what?

But Castle had been so uptight about the security camera not being in the bedroom, about how he wouldn’t do that, about how so much of his life was for public consumption, but not her.

She’d had this feeling, back then, that he’d meant his father - that his life was arranged and dictated by that man to the degree that Castle was hiding her from him.

There was no way Castle knew about the cameras in his place. Well, she was assuming more than one because a linen closet in the bathroom was a stupid place to have one if you were only going to have one.

Cameras.

She had a really bad, sick feeling.

The whole way back to her place, she just - she had a really bad feeling about it. She even got off the subway and wandered around on the street for a little while, checking her reflection in the windows and turning suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk.

She found she was actually being followed, which was a scary feeling - to have her instincts be confirmed completely and thoroughly.

She just ran. She didn’t even care about being clever; she just ran.

Through the streets, down the block, into an alley that she remembered from chasing a suspect, out onto a parallel street, jay-running across the street, and dashing into Central Park.

She shucked off her leather jacket - it was red and she loved it but it had to go. Maybe she could get it back? No. Just - fuck.

Beckett pulled out her phone, the packet of pills, her keys, and she wadded up the leather jacket and hurried towards a garbage can and she stopped, in complete agony, and what killed her most was that it was the same feeling she’d had when Lanie had finished stitching his wrist and had looked at her like she was the most completely idiotic woman ever to walk the earth, getting involved with a mobster and her a cop.

Same feeling, ditching the jacket, as losing a potential lifelong friend.

Fuck the jacket. She’d been followed from his apartment.

They - whoever they were - probably knew where she lived, but in case they didn’t, she wasn’t going to be the one to lead them back to him. Not when he couldn’t even stand up.

Kate checked the silver case, pulling back the foam lining, messing with the latch until she was reasonably sure it wasn’t being bugged or tracked, and then she bit her lip and hurried deeper into Central Park. She took a path, not caring where it led, and went through the cover of trees.

She pried the back off her cell phone and popped out the battery, killing GPS or whatever else might track her, and she put the pieces in her pockets. She went quickly down the path, taking it as fast as she dared without calling attention to herself, and then she went off through the trees themselves, abandoning the path.  
When she’d been a kid, a teen, she and her friends had haunted these paths through the park like they were tough and cool and not from the richest section of the city. At least this time Kate had a weapon and police training and whatever else maturity could bring her.

Mostly it just told her she was very stupid to go off the paths.

She cut through a whole section of Central Park in the shaded cool of the trees, and then she came out below Belvedere Castle. She knew where she was then, and she cut across the lawn and towards the Pond, checking behind her every few yards as she moved.

When she came to the other end, finally, she’d been in the park for an hour and she hadn’t spotted a tail.

She stepped back out onto the street and debated the subway again, but she was afraid to let them - whoever they were - pick her up on camera after swiping her metro card.

Castle had never wanted to ride the subway, had shied away from pharmacies and banks where they used security cameras; she’d just follow his lead.

\-----

He didn’t even move when she injected him. It was like an epi pen, he had promised, just push the vial into the chamber and stab him in the thigh.

She did it, the first one, but she didn’t do the second one. She wasn’t sure - it didn’t seem right that a vial of clear serum was going to work a miracle. She didn’t believe in miracles.

But when he didn’t move, when his skin still burned and the ice was melting faster than she could replace it, she shoved the second vial into the pen and she jabbed it into his other thigh, making it even.

He still didn’t wake.

Kate pressed her palms together and bowed her head over her knees, swallowed down whatever thick ugly thing was in her throat.

She wasn’t sure how long she was just sitting there, waiting, nothing happening, when she felt it. The disturbance - a change of air pressure or the sun going behind the clouds. She lifted her head and Castle was still unconscious in her bed, but she got to her feet and stood there a moment, listening.

It wasn’t a noise, it was just a feeling, and she followed it out of the bedroom and down the hall and towards the front door. She was standing there, barely breathing, waiting, when the door buzzer sounded.

The front door buzzer - the one for the security door down on the first floor. She had an intercom where she could call down and answer and even buzz them up if she knew the person.

She didn’t answer the intercom. She didn’t touch it.

She had a feeling it was a ploy, and she didn’t step into the intercom at all. She just stood there, palms tingling, sweat at the back of her neck, breathing shallowly.

And only twenty seconds later, the knock came at the door.

She couldn’t ignore that. She couldn’t ignore it because she knew what happened next. One by one her only defenses were falling through, easily, just as Castle himself had done to them. All that was left was the chain on her door and her own weapon, which she found she’d already drawn and couldn’t remember when.

Kate closed her eyes for one brief second, gathering her will, and then she stepped to the door and looked through the peephole.

It was only after she’d done it that she realized that had been a really stupid, fatal move. If the man outside her door really had wanted to do her damage, he’d have unloaded a high-round shotgun through her door right at the center mass where the peephole was, and she’d be fucking done for.

But the man on the other side apparently didn’t intend to kill her. He was carrying; she saw it on his hip but he wasn’t hiding it. He was looking off down the hallway, so what she had was his profile, but then he heard or sensed something and his gaze swung around to her.

She stumbled back.

That was - without a doubt - Castle’s father.

Fucking hell.

Kate moved to the door and flipped the deadbolt, but something made her pause. That sun behind the cloud sensation traveled up and down her spine and she turned and glanced at her living room.

His clothes were back in her bedroom, his blood cleaned up from her kitchen, his ID pack on the bed next to the bottle of tylenol and the half-empty glass of water.

She kept the chain on the door and opened it just slightly, her gun down at her side though not out of the line of the man’s sight.

When the crack widened but went no further, the man gave her a slightly sardonic smile that had all the earmarks of her spy.

Fuck, it was uncanny. The shape of his shoulders, the hawk of his nose, even the squint of his eyes were the same. It wasn’t Castle’s face though. It wasn’t the squirm of joy behind those blue eyes either.

It was ice cold and it was deadly, and it was staring back at her out of this man’s face.

“Can I help you?” she said, trying to make her voice as hard.

His gaze flicked down to the gun. “You need a weapon to answer your door?”

She slammed the door shut on him and flipped the deadbolt.

Fuck him. She didn’t need him fucking around in her head, playing around just because he could. 

Her hands were shaking though. Damn it. She-

“Detective Beckett. You will want to open this door.”

She swallowed. He knew who she was. He knew her. He’d come to her building because he knew where she lived - had to have known for a while because he’d had the key to her downstairs security door.

Fucking hell.

“Detective Beckett-”

She flipped the deadbolt and opened the door to the extent of the chain. “Do I know you?” she said harshly, not letting it out.

“I’m assuming you do,” he said. His fingers twitched against his thigh. She didn’t know what kind of tell that was, but she thought it was one. Something. “I’m assuming my son has said a few things about me.”

She remained silent even though she knew that admitted to it. He already knew anyway, so it wasn’t like she was giving out extra information. She knew from studying the interrogation box that opening her mouth was the worst idea.

Opening her mouth was death.

“All right,” he said. “I’m John Black, and you’re recently-Detective Katherine Beckett. May I call you Katherine?”

“May I call you John?”

The fingers twitched. He was either amused or he really didn’t like her. She found herself caring quite a great deal which one it was, and either one was equally appealing.

“Detective,” he said slowly. 

“So that’s a no on calling you John,” she mused. Good to know.

His nostrils flared - barely perceptible, but there it was. “Detective Beckett - Katherine - you should know that my son is in trouble.”

She had to say something now. “In trouble.” She repeated it like she didn’t want it to be news to her. She repeated it like she’d heard the stupider prostitutes repeat he said that when they were in the box and getting hoodwinked by the detective. They always spilled after that because their pimp seemed to have betrayed them or ditched them and they were feeling insecure.

Kate Beckett was none of those things, but she knew that someone like John Black was going to judge her based on his own preconceptions. She was a woman, strike one. She was a civil servant with a gun, strike two. She was fucking his son, strike three - she was out. 

“He’s most assuredly in trouble,” Black said. He looked peeved at being outside of the door, not allowed further. “I know he came here.”

“He did,” she answered easily. She didn’t offer more, but she figured that the cameras in Castle’s apartment were his father’s doing. Which meant that Black knew she’d gone to the apartment, probably knew what she’d taken out of it, and knew she’d had a contact with him sometime today.

But she had wandered the city for an hour and a half, and then she’d injected Castle twice - about a couple hours apart - and that meant there were hours between that ten minutes in Castle’s Harlem apartment and this visit right here.

“He came here and he asked you to get something for him and you did.”

“I did.”

“And?”

She looked at him blankly.

That flick of disdain - perhaps it was amusement, hard to tell - came over him and then was gone again. “And if you have contact with him, I’m the one who needs to know.”

“I understand that,” she said. “And since you’re here, you know that I know what he is and what he does. I don’t have contact info for you though, so how was I supposed to tell you he’d been here?”

“Had been?”

She nodded. She had no idea why she was lying her ass off to his own father, but she was. She just didn’t like him. She shouldn’t be lying to him, she should be bringing him straight back to her bedroom to save his fucking life but instead she was putting him off.

“Detective. Care to elaborate?”

She rolled her eyes. “I got him the meds and he took them and he left. He’s like that, you know.”

“He’s... like that.” Black narrowed his eyes and glanced past her. “He’s not here.”

“He left,” she said. She didn’t offer more. The more details she gave, the worse it looked, the worse it sounded, the less plausible.

“He left you?”

Kate rolled her eyes. “We fuck. You know that. Come on.” She moved to shut the door, ending the conversation, but he lashed out and got his foot between the door jamb. It had to hurt, but it didn’t show on his face.

“You fuck. I do know that. Was he not in a fuckable enough condition for you?”

She smirked. “We did that already.”

His eyes were like cold fish. “Even though you’ve been suspended for five days? You’ve fucked and you’re done?”

Beckett pressed her lips together. “That’s none of your business.” She kicked and got his knee, and he stuttered back - though not like she’d expected, not as severely as she’d hoped. It was enough to get his foot out from her doorway, and she slammed the door shut quickly, threw the deadbolt again, scuttled off to one side with her weapon raised and her heart pounding.

She had just had a throwdown with John Black - his fucking father - and she’d basically assaulted a federal agent.

Fuck, her five-day suspension was looking like nothing compared to this.

She held her breath, her heart pounding crazily in her chest, and she waited.

She heard him just outside the door and it took her entirely too long to figure out what he was doing.

The security camera Castle had installed.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

She ran for the office and stumbled to her computer, woke it up with a tap at the keyboard, already leaning over to jiggle the mouse. Shit. Shit. She should’ve fucking thought-

But there were no cameras in her bedroom. At least there was that. He might have tapped her security feed, but there were none in the bedroom. 

Kate got the computer running and she opened the program, pulled up the security feed. There was no way to tell if Black had hijacked the one outside, but she saw him on the monitor.

Then she cut the feed, deactivated the cameras entirely, and reached behind her computer and pulled the plug from the hardline itself.

Her heart was pounding like crazy.

She thought she might throw up.

From out in the hallway, she heard the man leave. She sank back against the office chair and closed her eyes, put a hand to her forehead.

What the fuck had she done?

\-----

At least he was still unconscious. 

Kate paced her bedroom, wound up tighter than she could possibly sustain, haunting his prone body on her bed.

At least unconscious he wasn’t moving around, making noise for his father to hear. She had no doubt John Black was out there somewhere listening in, waiting, and Kate had at least given the impression his son was ambulatory. So a quiet apartment-

She had to stop pacing. She sounded guilty pacing around.

Beckett headed down the hallway and into the bathroom, shut the door and leaned back against it with a caught breath. She had to close her eyes and gulp in air for a moment, and then she leaned forward and flicked on the taps in the shower to drown out the noise of her panicking. 

And then she caught sight of her face in the mirror and she froze.

Holy fuck.

Her left eye was ringed in blue, even down her cheek. Fucking hell. That was not good. Black had seen that. What would he infer? He knew she’d been suspended for five days so it was possible he attributed the black eye to her suspension. A captain might write her up and suspend her and make it look smaller than it was - a bad attitude - if he thought she had promise and didn’t want to ruin her career with a mark against her for fighting in the squad room.

Possible.

But Castle had said he was usually restrained for this. Which indicated a history of violence, and Black might jump to the conclusion that Castle had been bad enough to cause the black eye himself.

She’d indicated that he had left. She had to hope that Black assumed Castle could walk, that he wasn’t that badly injured whatever had happened, but that he was somewhere licking his wounds. She’d made it sound like Castle was basically hitting her up for sex and to run his damn errands, and she knew that was how a man like Black would want to see her.

Black might not realize how desperate the situation really was. He had wanted more information from her, clearly, and he’d tried to access her security feed to get it, since she hadn’t been forthcoming.

What he did and didn’t know really didn’t concern her. What he did and didn’t think, she had no control over that. If he thought Castle had punched her or she’d gotten into a fight at the 12th, either way, didn’t matter.

She had to focus on the unconscious man in her bed.

\-----


	5. Chapter 5

He was sweating; it was uncomfortable to be so sweaty with the sheets sticking to him. He could feel it breaking out at his back and behind his knees and he wanted to push the covers down but he was so tired.

But it was too hot.

But he was so tired.

Unf. 

Castle groaned and rolled, trying to get out of the warm spot, find cooler sheets, but his movement was arrested suddenly and firmly.

His eyes flared open.

Oh. No wonder. Kate Beckett was in his bed. 

Check that. Her bed.

Asleep, her body curled up in a narrow space at the edge. He must have been in the middle and when he had rolled, he had come up right against her. His arm was taped to his chest and it hurt - yeah, it hurt, cramped between them - but he didn’t mind it so much.

Castle reached out and skimmed his good hand over her bruised cheek. She moaned and shifted, came in closer to him, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and drew her against his body, wrist be damned.

Kate stiffened and woke with a gasp, hands splayed at his chest, glancing against his injured wrist, and he winced. 

“Cast-”

“Hey, love,” he murmured, closing his eyes to deal with the pulse of pain the movement had brought. “Sorry, kinda sweaty.”

“Castle,” she gasped.

He opened his eyes and her hands were coming up to cup his face. She looked - wrecked.

“Castle, thank God-” she moaned, and her arms wrapped tightly around his neck. Before he could say anything, the weight of her threw him onto his back and she was draped half over his chest with her face in his neck.

And - tears?

He wrapped his non-taped arm around her shoulders and gripped her hard even as she fought to free herself, fought to break away, break down somewhere else. He pressed his lips to the grief spilling out of her eyes, touched her tears and took them, wordless, not trying to shame her, just trying to force her to accept a little comfort.

She’d been scared for him; he’d seen it in her face the moment she’d woken up beside him.

He hadn’t wanted to scare her. He felt fine now; he was awake and maybe gross with the last of the fever-sweat, but everything was as it should be. She’d been that worried.

Kate was still struggling to get away from him, but she was hiding her face against his neck and chest, and after a second, he realized she was trying to shift to his other side, off his wounded arm.

He let her go and she slinked right out of bed and away from him before he could catch her. She headed out of the bedroom without looking back and he threw off the covers and followed, not willing to miss a moment, his moment, not when he always had to fight so hard for them.

Kate was just about to slam shut the bathroom door when he came on her, and she hesitated when he shoved his body into the breach. He pushed right on in and she back-pedaled and then turned away from him, shoulders heaving.

She was still crying. He snagged her around the neck and dragged her into him and pressed his chin on top of her head to keep her there.

“That black eye is my fault, isn’t it?” he grumbled.

She let out a breath against his neck and twisted, but he clutched her tighter. He wanted to say, I’m okay now, I promise, I’m fine, but that would be admitting that he knew she was worried about him and that wasn’t okay with her. So he just held her, forced her down against him, let her hear his heart beating and feel his breath at the top of her head, kept her there until the shake and tremble left her.

“Thanks for getting the injections anyway, despite the danger to you,” he murmured. “Might have taken another swing at you before it’s all said and done.”

She huffed, still stiff in his arms. “None of the danger was from you,” she muttered.

“None...” What?

“Your father stopped by,” she said, grim. She pulled away from him in his shock, her face livid and painful to look at.

“My - what?”

“John Black. I made his acquaintance-”

“Oh, God,” he whispered, staring at her.

“Not quite,” she muttered back, slipping away from him.

He went after her - at least the tears were gone, though he didn’t enjoy what had taken their place. His father had come here?

“Kate,” he said insistently.

She turned and he caught up to her in the hallway; she put a finger over her lips and he stood stunned until she dragged him towards the living room.

She went to her computer set up in the little half-walled office, and she flipped it on, plugged in a cord in the back, and then the camera feed flickered on.

The cameras he’d installed.

A man was lurking just below her fire escape, a dark pinpoint in the bright light of the afternoon.

\-----

"You are not leaving this apartment," she said, putting her body between him and the door. Castle practically bounced off of her and she saw it hurt - the flash of pain in his eyes. "You just woke from what was basically a fucking coma. You are not going out there to confront some asshole."

He'd said it wasn't his father but one of his father's 'goons' - a guy named Deleware. She had no doubt Castle could handle whatever it was, but he wasn't walking outside when he was incapacitated.

"He's not just gonna go away," Castle grumbled. He moved as if to go past her and she blocked him again.

"No, but I'm not doing this on his timetable either. I just lied to a CIA agent - which I'm sure is a punishable offense-"

"Kate-"

"And I kicked him," she admitted stupidly, afterthought. "Which is probably worse."

"You - you-" Castle looked like he was completely floored. "Kicked him? Like... kicked him."

"Like a four year old throwing a tantrum, yes," she snapped. "And you are not going out there and proving me a liar."

"You did lie."

"Because you said he couldn't be trusted!" she exploded, shoving on his shoulder to get him away from the door. The fact that he rocked back, a little off-balance, only proved her right.

And they both knew it.

"Plus he gives me the creeps," she muttered, steering him back down the hallway. He was going, studying her with eyes that saw too much, but she had to let him if it meant he'd get back in bed. "He looks at me like there's - there's an entirely different person back there."

"I - isn't - well, he is an entirely different person."

She rolled her eyes and got him to the bed, and when his calves hit the mattress, he actually stumbled. Fell to sit hard on the side of the bed.

And for some reason, only now did she realize he was quite very naked.

"I meant, he looks at me like there's something - riding along with him. A passenger, like the book calls it."

Castle moved like he wanted to stand again, trying to get past her. "The book?"

Fuck, he shouldn't look that good half-dead. "Book series I read - main character is a serial killer. He calls the instinct his dark passenger." She waved it away and instead put a knee on the mattress at his hip to entice him to stay down.

Castle paused. "He's - a serial killer?"

"Not your father, just..." Maybe a psychopath; she wouldn't rule that out. It - she had a sense for things, for people, they resonated. 

Black resonated darkly, but he was Castle's father.

"Sorry, Rick, that's not what I meant," she murmured, shifting now to straddle his knees. His hand came up to clasp her hip, a squeeze that made her belly clench.

"What did you... I don't want him anywhere near you," Castle rasped, closing his eyes and leaning into her. His forehead came to rest at her collarbone and she felt him taking gulping breaths. "It scares the shit out of me to think of him anywhere near you, and I don't even know why, he's just my father, he's just - but please, Kate, please don't try to take him on."

She had never backed down from a threat; it just wasn't in her to turn tail and run. Injustice pissed her off and she was actually someone who could do something about it.

And she didn't think, in this case, that Castle could. He was just - Black was his father. He wouldn't see it, didn't see what his father did to him, how the words he said were just so... wrong. Castle repeated back some of it to her, parroting his father's commands, and it was just so wrong.

Castle was over thirty years old. 

But sometimes it was like she held a little boy's heart in her hands.

She turned her cheek into his and brushed her mouth to his jaw. His arm wrapped tightly around her and pulled her hard against him, but he grunted when she landed against his taped arm. Still he was fumbling at her leggings, trying to drag them down.

"Let me undo the tape, baby," she murmured. "You'll kill us both with an arm restrained like that, you're so off-balanced."

"Am not," he muttered into her chest. His mouth was devious and she arched, a whine in her throat. "See? I got you."

And then his fingers - oh, fuck - he really had her.

\-----

Castle sighed in relief when his fingers sank into her heat. Kate moaned and folded over him, her breath damp at his neck, and it just felt so damn good. She was in way too many clothes, but he’d gotten a hand into her leggings, and there was something erotic and strong about being stark naked while she was draped against him. 

The material of her shirt rubbed his bare chest, her breasts somewhere under that cotton, tantalizing in their closeness. He nuzzled his mouth down under her hair and sucked on her neck, grinning feral when she squeaked. She responded around him like he had her, like he could do anything - a superman when it came to her.

“Fuck,” she whined. “Your - your arm. Don’t wanna - wanna hurt you-”

He curled his fingers inside her and she stiffened, gasping, completely losing all train of thought. Hurt him? Fuck, no. She just needed to lose it, just like she was doing. He really liked that. Really, really adored that - the flutter of her lashes as she went up, the arch of her neck, those noises in her throat.

But he kinda needed that arm. “Untape me, Beckett,” he rasped.

She moaned.

He scissored his fingers and she rocked wildly over his lap, one of her hands clutching the back of his neck. She was so fucking hot, a little desperate, a lot horny - and she was grinding her sex down into his hand. He was dying to see it, but there was something about watching his hand disappear inside those black leggings.

But he really wanted his other arm for this. Fucking hell, she was amazing.

“Kate, love,” he hummed, touching his tongue to the dark taste at her neck. “Kate. My arm.”

“Shit,” she gasped, jerking back. It set her off balance and she started to fall - right off his lap, pitching backwards - but he yanked his hand out from her leggings and snagged her around the waist, pulling her hard back into him.

Kate blinked, a little deer-in-the-highlights, both her hands gripping his arm.

“Two - two arms. Right,” she rasped. “But, fuck, you’re good with one.”

He grinned. “You’re fantastic. Did you know that, Beckett, love? You’re absolutely amazing.”

Her smile was shy. Fuck, that killed him. She had no right to be shy, to look like she was in love with him right back when all she did every second of her waking hours was insist they were only a good time.

He hurt, he loved her so much. Shouldn’t have happened, should never have happened, but it was too damn late, and she’d gone up against John Black to protect him, and she was cupping his face in her hands and kissing him softly.

Whoa, never mind. Hot. Soft had just burst into predatory, and she sank her teeth into his bottom lip and sucked.

Castle growled back, palmed her ass with one hand as he forced her to rock against his bare thigh. She had entirely too many clothes, and he still only had one arm.

“Tape,” he snapped. “Fuck, Beckett, get this damn tape off me.”

“Hell, yeah,” she said, but her voice was cracking as she went for him.

She was shaking a little when her hands came to the tape, started peeling it back. She’d taken something like surgical tape, the soft, thin kind, so it wasn’t difficult to get. And the second it began to soften, loosen its hold, Castle reached down and ripped it away, yanking hard.

“Rick!” She clutched his elbow, staring down at his wrist, but there really wasn’t time for that. She needed to be naked like yesterday.

“Clothes off,” he insisted, pulling his arm out of her hands. He had both now, and he sank his fingers under her waistband and pushed the leggings out of his way. She sucked in a strange, hitched breath - like she might cry again - but he slipped his good hand between her legs and she mewled.

Kate clutched his shoulders, but soon her hands were working under her t-shirt, throwing it off, her hair falling around her face. He leaned in and attacked her mouth, nearly toppling her off his lap doing it. She grunted, maybe - was that a giggle? - or just hysterical desperation, like the throbbing in his cock as he felt her thighs brushing him, the kink of her pubic hair and the heat of where he wanted to be.

“Come on, baby,” he moaned. Fuck, he really needed inside her. “Kate. Kate, please.”

She squeezed his hips with her thighs, rose up just enough. Her nipple brushed his lips and he darted his tongue out, licked as she went past him, rising to her knees, her breathy moan making his cock jump in response.

She wrapped her hand around him, gripped tightly, and he shouted, overwhelmed by the feeling.

“Lie back,” she rasped. “Lie down, Castle. Keep your bad arm out of it.”

His eyes were squeezed tightly, and he had to peel them open to look at her. She was a goddess over him, her breasts twin globes in the afternoon light, licked yellow and pink. She squeezed his cock again and pushed on his shoulder, and so he let himself fall back.

She fell with him, her inside thighs splaying open across his hips, and she rubbed her arousal against him.

“Fuck,” he gasped, staring up at her.

“Yeah, baby, let’s do that,” she hummed.

And then she sank down over his cock, the best - the most amazing - the fucking most beautiful thing he’d ever felt in his entire life.

He lifted his good hand to her breast, skimmed her nipple, the hanging slope, and up to her jaw, caressing her lips. Her eyes burned on his. Her tongue came out and touched his thumb, and he lifted his neck to kiss her.

Kate came down over him, chest to chest, and her hips began to undulate over him, these intense, tight writhes that had him bursting with joy.

\-----

She gripped his forearm and put all of her weight into pushing him back down to the bed. Castle watched her breasts swing as she moved over him, moaned as he felt her shifting around his cock.

But he left his arm over his head just like she kept insisting, vaguely feeling his pulse pounding through his wrist, his eyes on hers.

“Stay,” she husked.

“Move,” he shot back, bucking his hips up into her. 

They both groaned when his cock slid deeper inside her, a nudge and tumble as if he had rearranged her womb to get just that much further, tighter, higher. She was breathing shallowly, her lashes fluttering in that way she had when she was really close, and he felt his orgasm clutching him around the throat, ready, so fucking ready.

But he wasn’t ready for it to be over. Not yet, damn, not yet. He’d been missing her for months, aching at night, imagining this, every free second of his tension-filled days - this had been his touchstone.

Sliding back inside her, dwelling there.

She started to move.

The viciousness of his need for her was so extreme that it was almost impossible to resist the urge to roll on top of her and grind himself inside. Just - deep. Utterly, strikingly deep. Like he might be able to do permanent, irreversible shifting of her insides. Like he might carve out a place for himself that she could never fill without him.

“Need you,” he growled, all he could say. Her mouth had fallen open and her body was so close, skins rubbing together, the friction excruciating. “Fuck, I need you, Kate. Need you to work for me, love. Work me harder, deeper.”

She moaned over him, her mouth hot along his adam’s apple, to his cheek. He clamped his good arm around her waist and gripped her ass, drove himself up higher, tighter inside her body.

“You’re so fucking huge,” she moaned. “Damn it, I swore - swore that would never come out of my mouth-”

“Swore I’d never come out of your mouth either, baby, but it feels pretty fucking amazing to lose it while you suck me off.” 

“Fuck!” Her body tightened around him and he cursed back, ramming deeper, pumping his hips as she rode him close.

Had to - had to get under control. Fuck. Get this back. “I love your dirty mouth, but this feels pretty damn wet and hot right here. Right between your thighs, where I belong, right here where it’s so tight, where you grip me inside.”

She whimpered, her head falling to his shoulder, her breasts these warm weights against him, but her nipples so cold. He was on the edge, he couldn’t keep a tight enough rein on it, he was going to lose it.

“Kate,” he whispered, the only warning he could give her. She still had one hand wrapped around his bicep, holding him down, and she rubbed her body upward, breasts and belly, and then sank back hard on his cock.

He went so deep. She yelped and tightened like a fist around him, her thighs crushing his hips, her body held rigid, waiting, expectant.

Castle gritted his teeth to survive it, and then scraped his thumb around her hip to the hot place between her legs. He fumbled only a second, making her moan, and then he found her, crushed her clit against his cock with one last thrust.

She erupted, her orgasm battering at him, and he groaned with his own climax, the whole thing rushing out of him like a firehose, life and energy and love bursting into her, a torrent he could never hold back.

She sobbed and fell over him, her insides still fluttering and shocking around his triumphant cock, and in the middle of all of it, he could swear he felt her lips.

Soft, beautiful, loving. Her kiss touched something in him that rose up fiercely to meet her, wanting.

“Again?” she whispered. “Oh, Castle. Castle, please. You’re still - so hard. Please, please-”

He buried his teeth in her neck, growling, and rolled over to make this one last.

\-----

“Please,” she whispered. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop.” She knew she was chanting it, panting it into his ear, but holy shit this felt so good.

So good.

He was killing her with this slow and steady shit. Killed absolutely dead. It felt so damn good she couldn’t think around it, couldn’t begin to want anything else.

Just this. His grinding slide inside her, the slow withdrawal. His mouth open at her mouth, tongues touching in between a taste of her jaw, or her scrape at his scruff. It was fucking erotic, moving this slow, having him this deep, his body pressed over hers.

His tongue roved over her bottom lip, slipped inside. She moaned, tried to hook her thigh around his hip again but he kept pushing her flat. She was just supposed to take it, and fuck it felt good to be fucked.

“Don’t stop,” she moaned. “Oh, please, don’t stop.”

“Never, love. Never,” he husked. His voice was like a hand shoved into her, fishing around for her heart. She shuddered as he withdrew, fingers trailing her heart’s veins and arteries, cock dragging the rough edge of her cunt, and then he pushed back inside.

So full, so deep. So thick. So whole.

“I think about you,” he rasped. “Think about this with you.”

She moaned.

“Think about how this feels. Never get it right,” he murmured. His mouth was hot against her neck. “Never can exactly recreate in my head just how fucking good this is.”

“So good,” she gasped.

“So good it aches.”

“Oh, God-”

“Think about you, love, and wish you were with me. Even on that boat, my hands tied behind my back, kneeling on the deck, thought about how you feel around my cock, how good it is when we’re together.”

“Castle,” she cried out, wrapping her arms around his neck as he stroked inside her.

“Just thought you should know. Saved my life. Few hundred times before. And then again last night. Saved my life, Kate Beckett, and now I’m yours.”

She trembled around him and her orgasm broke apart like falling through the ice, sudden, shocking, the crash of her whole body down into the darkest, violent pleasure.

And he fell through right after her.

\-----

Kate stroked her fingers through the hair at his nape, shifted a little so her hips didn't ache. He tried to move off of her then, and she clutched the back of his neck, wrapped her free arm around his shoulders, kept him from going anywhere.

"No, don't," she murmured. "Shouldn't have done that with you... so just stay. Stay, baby."

He let out a little sigh that made her heart clench - fuck, she was really desperately not good with this - and his uninjured hand skimmed her ribs. At least he had kept the stitched hand out of it, over his head now, arm curled around her head so that she could see the black marks out of the corner of her eye.

"You feel so good under me," he mumbled.

Her skin erupted in goose bumps despite the sweat still clinging in all the right places, and Castle stroked her hip, then up her raised thigh to her knee where she had pulled it in, cradling him. He hummed and something like a laugh came out of his lips.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," he husked.

"What?" She spread her sweat-sticky palm to his back and their skins connected, stuck. She liked that feeling, how moving made the other move, dragged a body with a body. "What did you think?"

"When you get goose bumps," he mumbled. His nose nuzzled in at her breast and she got them again, zipping along her skin at the touch of him. He was laughing, the bastard. "Baby, it's kinda weird."

"What?" she muttered. "Everybody gets goose bumps. Even you. Sometimes. If I do it right."

He grunted. "You always do it right. No I mean, right here." His palm pressed at her outside thigh, just below the crease of her hip, and skirted down. "You don't get them."

"What do you - what are you even talking about?" she muttered, shifting under him so that her other knee wasn't quite so twisted. He lifted up on an elbow to let her get situated, and his eyes traced the outlines of her face. He was still smiling. Soft, a little heart-killing.

His mouth dropped and touched a kiss between her breasts and her goose bumps flared up again. This time Castle grabbed her hand and pushed it along her own thigh and she felt it.

A strip of skin just didn't respond. The rest of her thigh was prickled tight - fuck, she needed to shave, that was embarrassing - but that one strip of skin just didn't react. 

For some reason, it made her irrepressibly sad. 

His fingers tangled in hers and she lifted her chin, staring up at her ceiling, pushing breath into her lungs. 

His kiss on her stomach had her biting her lip, his mouth against her belly button made her suck in a breath.

"I like it," he whispered. "I like knowing it's there."

She didn't understand why; she didn't get it at all. But fuck, was she so grateful he did.

"I like that I know things about your body that not even you know. Let me show you something else," he murmured, and then he pushed his shoulders between her thighs.

Oh. Oh, fuck. She was - pretty sure - she knew that already but - f-f-fuck. 

"Rick!"

Nope, nope, hadn't known that. Fuck.

She dropped back to the mattress, panting, her hands still clutching his hair, and he had the nerve to lick his lips.

Oh no, injured or not, he was getting it for that smug cocky-

oh yes. That.

\-----


	6. Chapter 6

Sometimes she acted like no one had ever touched her the way he touched her.

Maybe no one ever had. That thought alone made him hard, his mouth sealed over her sex and his tongue playing with her clit. She was whimpering and writhing under him, so that he had to drag his arm down her torso and pin her to the bed.

It was his injured arm and that might have been a mistake, because she went shockingly and instantly still.

He used his good hand to probe his fingers in her cunt, and she gasped, hips bucking. Castle elbowed her pelvis back down, got his mouth on her again, and she mewled.

She acted like no one had ever taken the time to taste her, to know how she liked to be tasted, which flavors could be released depending on how fast he wound her up or how slow he took her down.

She was just so fucking responsive that it was - fuck - it was an honor to be part of it.

Made him ache, tasting her. Made him want to fuck her with his tongue until she gripped his hair and ground her cunt against his nose. She’d done it a few times, though he knew she tried not to, and he loved it.

She tasted coppery tonight, like horror, and he wondered if it was remnants of grief over him.

Or that time of the month approaching. He still hadn’t quite pinned her down on that; she absolutely would never let him know, and he wasn’t sure she was entirely regular, because he knew of a couple times last year but they hadn’t been the same times.

And she seemed eager any day of the month.

“Castle!”

He grinned against her sex and she groaned, hips undulating. He sucked on her arousal, wetness at his lips that tasted of spices, tasted of deep feeling, and so what if he wanted it to be true?

He tongued her clit and stroked two fingers inside her. She mewled and danced her hips around his intrusion, back and forth like she didn’t know what to do. He circled her clit with his tongue, loving the hot little noises she made when he attacked her center aggressively like this.

A hand came to his ear, gripped, twisted as her hips crashed into his chin.

He growled and she yelped, a quick grind. She was losing it. She was losing control.

Castle twisted his fingers and scraped wide, stretching her, and she moaned, sitting up over his head, thighs trembling at his ears. She clutched his ears in both hands, her breaths gasping, and so he curled his cramped fingers in her so-tight cunt.

Kate shouted as she came, hips humping his face, thighs gripping, and he held on to her as best he could, pumping her through the orgasm.

But instead of falling back to the mattress, breathless and grinning and a little sweaty, she collapsed over his body and wound around him, her face pressed against his neck.

He was left at the foot of the bed, stunned, skin to skin with a Kate Beckett he wasn’t sure he knew at all.

He stroked his good hand through her hair, over and over, and waited for it to be okay again.

\-----

Beckett didn’t seem to be able to come back.

After a few minutes, Castle slid his injured arm under her neck and his good one around the back of her thighs, and he slowly worked them both up to the head of the bed. He didn’t try to make a comment, though the silence, the quiet, worked on him like torture. He just laid down with her, arranging her close, his knees sliding between hers.

He found the sheet and drew it up over them, angled his stitched up wrist away from the tangle of her hair, and slid his good arm around her shoulders. She had her eyes pressed tightly closed and it was only after a moment of breathing that he realized she was trying not to cry.

Had been trying to keep it together.

So he ignored it; he helped her pretend there was nothing at all wrong.

Castle shifted until he could be comfortable, his systems slowly reporting in that everything was not actually okay. His wrist wasn’t critical, but it wasn’t happy with him, and he wasn’t with it either, because he really needed both hands for Kate Beckett.

After a moment of just - pausing together - Kate uncurled her body enough to slide in against him, their chests brushing, her cheek coming to his shoulder. He curled his good arm tighter around her, mentally rebuking the bad, and buried his mouth in her hair.

She smelled tired. He was afraid of what he’d done to her, showing up half-dead, bleeding out all over her kitchen floor, asking her to grab the injections from his place. And then his father had shown up and she’d spoken to him, they’d had words that had made Beckett kick Black, which was just...

Whatever had happened, it couldn’t have been pretty.

He’d dragged her right down into the middle of all the crap he’d ever tried to escape from. Though he didn’t do enough escaping or do it right, so that he was well and truly captured, and why had he ever thought he could keep her apart from it? That he could keep this one good thing?

He didn’t want that for her but it wasn’t like Beckett was something he could control or manipulate or predict the outcome. He knew what he wanted, what he was aiming for, in every mission - there was always an end goal. But with her, he had no idea, just no fucking clue. It was exciting and scary but he saw now that there were a lot of ways he could fuck her up, fuck them both up, and he had a feeling he’d done that a little bit all along, not knowing.

She was huddled stiffly against him right now, had been for a few too many minutes, and so of course he had. He’d done this to her, made her - into this - maybe just because she did care, because he’d broken into her heart every time he’d touched her, and so of course she was breaking apart in his arms.

This was his fault. He was dismantling her piece by piece when he came around.

Fuck, but he liked it. He was so filled up with the idea of it - that he had any effect on her at all. He was remaking her. He was knocking out some of her sturdiest walls and it sucked for her, on her end, it made her hide her eyes in his neck, but the great thing was that those were all rotted through in the first place. 

It wasn’t that she had shitty construction - she’d had good parents at one time, and a childhood so sparkling that she couldn’t even talk about it now - the comparison was so depressing. No, Castle was the one with some fucking messed up construction. But hers was crumbling, hers was getting her suspended for five days or putting her on the street corner or inserting her into dangerous clubs without back-up or regulation. Her foundation was just fine, but the walls and roof were just - corroded through. 

Knock it all down; he wanted that for her. He wanted it for himself too, but fucking hell, he was the one with a suspect foundation. Cracks in it, shifting bedrock. She filled him in some ways, but he knew instinctively that another person wasn’t going to be good material for filling him in. He had to do that work himself.

He could knock her shitty walls in, prove they were dry and fragile stuff, and that was good in the long run. It was. She’d build back better, with materials they made together - fuck, he really hoped together - and it would be stronger, she would be stronger.

But, damn it, he really needed a better foundation. He had to do some damn work here, get things overhauled, figure himself out, figure out the world. The things his father had taught him, those had seeped down into him and done serious damage and he needed to get out the rot.

Castle wasn’t good at introspection. He hadn’t ever had time for it or even the language for it. Lately, he’d been forced into it by Dr King at his debriefs - or rather, after the debrief. King would sometimes ask him other questions later, stuff about the mission and a few times about Kate. Things that Castle saw now were pointing to all this. What he was doing to her when they used each other like this, what they did to each other.

He was gaining the words, and with the words came understanding. A name for things.

Abandonment. Enabling. He had other words for it now too, ways to describe it, and he didn’t like what it said about their relationship or their need.

So maybe it had been a bad idea to collapse on her kitchen floor, but he still wasn’t clear enough to see another way.

He didn’t have language, didn’t have the words for a way without Kate.

All he could do was this. Wrap his arm around her and use his own body heat to melt her resistance, form her to him until she had sighed and her releasing breath had eased her shoulders and put her cheek to his chest.

He cradled the back of her head and he cradled her hips with his and he cradled her very heart against his heart, listening to it beat, and she fell asleep finally like that.

\-----

She was awake.

She’d been awake. Or rather she’d been in and out of a kind of doze. Every time she was aware of herself, she was lying in her bed with Castle, and she could hear his heart under her cheek, feel his skin too hot but not fever hot, and his fingers playing with her hair.

Injured hand was lying heavy on top of her ear, she could hear his pulse so that she had his heart in stereo.

She drifted back out, lulled by a quiet and steady drum of beats, and when she came back nothing had changed. The bed, the too-warm skin that kept her on the drowsy edge of comfortable, the heart thumping around her.

He wasn’t talking, which wasn’t like him, but she so appreciated it. Like a gift. She relished it, the quiet and the not talking and not expecting and having the heat of his skin keeping her entirely too boneless to even begin taking on the world once more.

His fingers dipped to her neck and rubbed lightly, arranging her hair over her neck. Why had she cut it so short? She had felt so fierce and free the moment the hair was gone, but she had started to hate it every morning. It didn’t style, it wouldn’t lay flat, it just - and when she let it air dry, it was a wreck. She had to straighten it every morning and it was such damn work, and even Castle didn’t have much to play with.

Not that it mattered. But it was nice, the feel of his fingers. She had never thought it could be soothing to have someone messing around - well, that was the fucking story of their whole relationship, wasn’t it? She had never thought it would be nice to have someone mucking around in her life, and yet here she was, thoroughly mucked.

Thoroughly. She hummed and turned her head, her lips glancing across his shoulder, and his skin erupted in goose bumps.

She laughed, but didn’t bother lifting her head. She knew what his face would look like. “Now who has goose bumps?”

He chuckled back, one hand still lying heavy on her head, the other at her upper back and neck, still fingering through her hair. “Yeah, you got me. But yours are so much more fun than mine.”

“I think yours are fun,” she murmured, still smiling. But neither of them moved to prove the fun, and that was different too.

Something was different. Between them, around them. It just was. She was too tired to analyze it, too tired to care. What she knew was that he had been dying, he had come to her, and she had saved his life.

He wasn’t going to die now, but he might some day soon. He might or she might and-

Fuck. It was Thursday afternoon. Her father would be coming by with the dog.

Kate groaned and pressed her face to Castle’s shoulder. “Ah, shit. I have to go.”

“What?” he whispered. His hands were hard against her, holding tight; one of his legs had come up to wind around her thigh. “Kate. Kate, don’t leave me.”

She froze.

“Don’t go,” he rasped, holding tighter.

She opened her palm over his chest, skimmed up to his neck. “I - I’m not leaving the apartment. And neither are you. But my dad is coming by with the dog, and I have to get dressed.”

Castle let out a choked noise and then she realized he was laughing. He was laughing. She smiled back and kissed the hard round knob of her shoulder.

It was fine. It had changed something, but they were still themselves.

\-----

Kate slipped out of his reach and he sighed, then gave in to his immaturity and whined for her, reaching out grasping fingers and giving her a pitiful look. She was almost all the way dressed.

"Stop," she laughed, and that she laughed at all made him happy. He grinned up at her and despite wearing only a pair of underwear and a black camisole and bra, she leaned in over him and kissed his forehead. "You stay."

"Stay?"

"Your dog is coming home, and I don't know how to explain this to my dad." She waved her hand over all of him, and he sobered.

"I'm sorr-"

"No," she said firmly, shaking her head. 

He waited, but she had nothing else to say to that, as if no was all she would dignify that response with. Just no. No, don’t go there, we aren’t those people, this has nothing to do with you.

Oh, maybe she wished it were true, but Castle knew he was the naked man in her bed that she would crawl back into when this encounter was done. So he let the no ride and he dropped his good arm back to the bed and rolled onto his stomach.

Her fingers came to his nape and scratched in his hair and he turned his head to look at her. She smiled, a little hesitant, a little bewildered, like she had no idea what to do with all these feelings.

God, he loved her. He loved cracking her open and seeing what spilled out. He just didn’t want to damage her too badly. He didn’t want the pain to be permanent. He had to trust that he could do this, they could do this, if they just kept doing it together.

He caught her when she came close, a fistful of her camisole’s hem and she clamped her fingers around his and pried him off. But she kissed the corner of his mouth anyway, soft, delicate, stay.

“Be right back,” she murmured.

She padded out of the room with a pair of jeans slung over her arm and not even a backward glance.

Castle was left alone in her bedroom with the sheet tangled around one leg and his wrist beginning to ache with the heat of healing.

He’d have to get her to dig out the stitches tomorrow, otherwise the skin would grow up over them and it would be bad.

\-----

Kate pulled her hair off her neck with a hand and twisted it tightly around her finger. She had the rubberband ready and she snapped it over the makeshift bun, hoping that would work with the short strands.

The door buzzed from downstairs, and Kate let out a breath of relief. Castle had said Deleware was a nobody, nothing to worry about, a guy usually in an office somewhere, permanently stateside, but she hadn’t been entirely confident.

A guy downstairs watching her building just...

She let her father up and peered out the front windows, saw Deleware still standing just below. He looked damned conspicuous, which meant that John Black was sending her a message, loud and clear: I know everything.

So what if he did? She had a drunk father and a less-than-stirling reputation in the NYPD. She had a detective’s badge she had earned through sheer damn determination, but she wouldn’t hold onto it unless she figured her shit out and settled the fuck down.

She knew that; it was a revelation in these last couple days, but she knew it now. The way Lanie had looked at her with her ‘hitman mobster’ boyfriend bleeding out, Kate had seen it pretty starkly.

She had to get her shit together. Lanie hadn’t been surprised to get a phone call from her, asking for serious help; Lanie had only thought she’d be a little smarter in her choices. People saw her as a loose cannon, someone they couldn’t control and couldn’t predict, someone to be wary of - even Castle himself treated her like that.

He seemed to like it - in bed. But the rest of the time, they were smashing dinner plates.

Kate heard her father’s tread on the floorboards in the hall and she went to the front door, peered through the peephole to be sure. There he was, and the dog trotting proudly beside him, so Kate took off the chain and flipped the deadbolt.

Her father had a strained smile for her but when he saw her face, he blanched.

He didn’t comment on it though, didn’t even ask where or how she’d gotten the black eye.

Her father wasn’t surprised, was he? He wasn’t surprised either. Nobody was, when she screwed up her life. No one was surprised when she crashed and burned.

Fuck.

Kate reached out and took the dog’s chain leash from her father’s hand. Jim’s adam’s apple bobbed, a common enough occurrence; she saw it every time he swallowed down whatever it was he wanted to say to her.

She was so fucking tired of it.

“What?” she prodded, tugging on the leash to bring Cujo into the apartment. She didn’t try to offer her father anything; he just stood there.

“Just - you okay with him this weekend?”

“Because you’re going to be drunk?” she said, unwilling to go easy on him. She didn’t know why she felt so pissy, just that life was fucking short and her father was drowning in his. “Don’t worry, Dad. I’ve got him.”

His face blanched. “No, I’m - a friend of mine, you remember Tavion Gunter? One of the lawyers in my practice, anyway. He’s got a place upstate. He - uh - he invited me to go fishing.”

Who the fuck was Tavion Gunter? “You’re - going upstate?”

“Yeah,” her father said, eyebrows knitting together.

Does he know you drink away your weekends? She didn’t say it though. She just - she glanced down at the dog and the dog looked up at her and gave her a wounded, sad face.

Like Castle himself. Fuck.

“Okay,” she said finally. “You - have a good time. Fishing. I - fishing?”

“Fishing.”

She nodded, bent over Cujo and scratched him behind his ears. The wolfdog opened his mouth in his brand of smile, lifted his nose to nudge into her hand. She couldn’t help the smile back, rubbed the top of his head until he leaned into her leg, clearly blissed to be there. His ears were tipped black, his muzzle had what she’d heard termed the bloodstain of black, and his paws were shadowed with black - but his body was brown and white, the pure white of the winter wolf.

Fuck, she loved this dog.

Beckett sank to her knees and pressed her face to his neck, rubbing through his fur and down to his lithe body, closing her eyes to the delighted wriggle. She finally lifted her head and saw her father was still standing outside her door.

She should...

Something. God, there had to be something to break the grief that chasmed between them. But even the dog didn’t do it.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Jim said. But he leaned out and lifted his fingers to the dog and Cujo whined and licked them, tail wagging. “Be good for your mama. I’ll see you later, Cuj.”

Her father turned to leave, and Kate stood up, leaning after him, wondering how - if she could possibly, if her father could ever-

Jim turned around suddenly and Kate’s heart jumped.

Her dad rubbed his jaw. “Katie? You - you be careful, sweetheart.”

“What?” she rasped, until she remembered her face again. The black eye. Right.

“There’s - it’s probably nothing - but there’s a guy hanging around down there, gave me the once-over as I came up. You’ve got - your service weapon here, right?”

She didn’t - she’d been suspended so it was back at the 12th. But she had her personal piece, and her father didn’t even know she had one. 

Royce had given it to her when she’d made detective, right before he’d completely disappeared, dropped off the map. Some of his old buddies said he’d gone into bond jumpers.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding. “I have my gun.”

Her father had always shown such - he hated that she wielded a weapon so easily. Her parents had been pacifists, her mother especially, but her father still was. More now than ever, probably, but his daughter was a police officer. 

She kept the peace, but he didn’t see that. He saw the gun, the black eyes.

“Katie, be safe. Please, just - be safe.” Her dad turned away and moved back down the hall again, leaving Kate with the dog and shocked into silence.

Deleware. Castle had said the guy rode a desk. He was a pencil-pusher, not a threat.

Well, evidently he was threatening enough that her pacifist father had told her to keep her weapon close.

“Dad,” she called out.

Jim half-turned, wincing, like he thought he had it coming.

She didn’t mean to say it, she had thought only to say you be careful yourself but instead what came out of her mouth felt like words that had been wanting out for years.

“I love you, Dad.”

Her father stood there, swaying on his feet, and for one terrible moment she thought he was going to turn around and leave.

No. No, please-

But he came back. He came to her standing in the doorway and he reached out, gripped her elbow first and then cupped the side of her face where it was tender. Then he softly drew her into him, his hug both hesitant and just the same as it had always been - her dad, her dad.

“Love you too, Katie.” His voice was rough and he pulled back quickly. “Bring you back some fresh catch.”

She nodded but he was already leaving her there.

The dog woofed softly in good-bye, then turned around and bounded inside her apartment, yanking the chain right out of her hand and heading for the back bedroom like he knew.

He probably did.

\-----

Castle grunted awake when the dog jumped onto the bed and licked his face. He lifted his good arm and hooked it around the dog’s neck, wrestling with him. “Cujo, you old bastard. How are you?”

Cujo nosed down into his armpit and woofed, that usual packmate greeting he always had, the two of them fighting out their position in Kate’s hierarchy.

“It’s me first, you nasty punter.” He cupped the dog’s muzzle and nudged him aside, but the dog came back to sniff at Castle, nosing up his arm to his bad wrist.

Castle went still, watching the dog, the big wolf body still posed above him, and the wet, cold nose went to his knuckles, dragging, before the hot breath came across the stitches.

“No! Cujo. Down. Get down. Castle, shove him off.” Kate had come in after the dog, and she clapped her hands together to startle Cujo off the bed. She wrapped her fingers through the leather collar and tugged, unclipping the chain leash.

Cujo couldn’t be budged. He was still nosing around Castle’s stitches, and he reached up and rubbed his good hand down the dog’s pelt. “He’s fine. Smells interesting. Or infected. If he licks me, he thinks my hand’s gonna rot.”

“That’s a load of bullshit,” she muttered, rolling her eyes at him. She plopped down onto the bed and reached for the button of her jeans, already skimming right out of them.

“It’s not. I read about it. Wild animals lick their wounds, Kate. If he thinks his packmate is wounded, he’s going to want to lick it clean.”

“If he fucking licks you, then it really will be infected, you idiot.”

He grinned into her rant and rolled onto his side, nudging Cujo out from between them. The dog hopped over his body and settled down at Castle’s back, huffing as he collapsed to the mattress.

“Wow,” Castle laughed, catching Kate’s eye. “He’s melodramatic.”

“Like someone I know. If he licks me, it’s rotted.” She yanked down her jeans and used her feet to kick them off, then rolled over into him, their bodies meeting in the middle of the bed. “Like father, like son.”

He unfurled the fingers of his good hand and stroked her neck. “You met my father. He is entirely the opposite of-”

She laughed. Bright and clear. Laughter so rich that his heart flipped. She leaned in and nudged a kiss into his bottom lip. “Baby, I meant you and your dog.”

He laughed back, but he felt a little - clutched. Clenched up. Him and his dog and she was caring for his - baby. Playing house.

Castle slid his hand to the back of her neck and pulled her into him, touching his tongue to her mouth and pushing inside before she could laugh at him again.

Kate hummed and then her hand went straight for his cock - he still wasn’t wearing a stitch - and that had turned out to be a really fantastic idea.

At his back, the dog growled low and Castle kicked at him, pushing Cujo to the floor. Kate laughed into his mouth and then pushed him right over, onto his back, and rose up over him.

She reached down for the hem of her black camisole and pulled it right off.

\-----


	7. Chapter 7

“You love my dog, don’t you?” he grinned, reaching up to cup her breasts, right under her bra so that the band pulled against his stitches. It hurt, but that arch of her spine was perfect, exactly what he needed.

“That’s not the best line I’ve ever heard, but if you wanna call your cock a dog-”

He laughed, and she beamed a grin back down to him, but she was shimmying out of her bra and throwing it aside and that caught him. Snared him totally.

Her breasts were these perfect, playful things. He wondered what happened in ten years when she shucked her bra - if playful and perfect would be the words he’d use for them or if they’d just be more like old friends or aging starlets.

He squeezed her breasts and she moaned, a little lewd, definitely putting it on, but he liked that too. How she worked herself up just thinking about it.

Castle scraped his thumbs over her nipples and her knees clenched around his hips. He wanted suddenly to watch her fall apart moving over him, wanted to watch himself moving inside her.

“Let me sit up, baby,” he said, already regretting losing his grip on her breasts. But he propped up on one elbow and then got his back against the headboard. She shifted down to sit in his lap, working her hips in dirty circles over his already throbbing cock. He had to take a second to reach for the crotch of her panties, tug hard to get them off of her.

She helped, well barely helped, twisting and contorting over his lap, her thighs strong stark as tree-limbs. He rubbed his hands up and down her legs, felt that strip of skin where her goose bumps just never came up, but she knocked his hands away.

Jarred his wrist, and he felt it, but he ignored it to settle his grip on her waist.

“Take me shallow,” he commanded, tilting her hips into him. She let out a noise, the kind of sound that meant he had surprised her - and he really liked that.

“Shallow?”

“I wanna watch us. I bet if you plant your hands on my shoulders, you can watch us too.”

“Fuck,” she breathed. He felt the release of her wetness against his hipbone where she had perched, and he gripped her a little harder. 

“Yeah? Fuck, it’ll be so good. I want to watch my cock spearing into you.”

“Fuck, yeah,” she growled. Already she was lifting herself up with her knees, reaching down to align him. He groaned when her arousal touched him, cursed when she painted her wetness along his cock, up and down and all around.

Fuck. Fuck. “Right now, Beckett. Gotta - go.”

She hummed, clearly in charge, and he felt her hips sashay. He opened his eyes and saw her wriggling over him, one hand on his bicep hanging on and the other wrapped around his cock and waiting for the last possible second to put him in.

He wished he had the words for this. Forget the psychoanalytics. He wanted words to describe the hot breathlessness of looking down at her hand around him, the teeth-gritting dizzying need that roared in his ears when he could feel her heat getting close.

“Kate,” he moaned.

She wriggled her hips and he sank a little ways into her.

It was excruciating.

He just might die like this.

\-----

Kate bowed her head around the feeling of having him so very close but so far.

Her thighs were trembling with the effort of holding herself up, and she gripped his bicep a little tighter and slowly let go of his cock.

Castle growled and began to shake. She swiveled her hips, still hovering over him, and his cock slipped a little further inside.

“Thought you wanted to watch,” she husked.

Castle groaned and his eyes flared open, staring intently between their bodies. She arched her spine and came down a little further, but his cock was so thick and wide that she could seriously use hours to get used to him peeling back her cunt.

She already felt stretched, already felt so filled up and it was just the girth of him opening her.

Castle’s fingers flexed on her hips and she stuttered, knee slipping so that she landed spread-thighed over him, her clit hitting his pubic bone hard and sending her into a gripping convulsion.

Castle cursed through it, chanting her name in between imprecations, until she planted her hands on his chest and rode close, worming her way back on his cock.

“Whoa, fuck,” he breathed.

She arched her hips and sank back some more, and then she purposefully lifted up.

“No!” he shouted. “Fuck. No, stop, don’t leave.”

“You said shallow,” she growled back, trembling just above him, only the tip of his cock inside her. Her arms were about to give out, her knees sweaty. “To watch us. So watch us, Rick Castle.”

His eyes flared open and came to where they were joined, and suddenly he was reaching down there in that close space and skimming his fingers along her inside thigh, up to her cunt, around his own cock so that she felt it like it was herself.

She shivered and he thrust.

Kate’s orgasm cloudburst before her, soaking her cunt and drowning out her anxiety, washing everything clear. 

Castle still had a hold of her hips and now he began to fuck her, steady rhythm, panting endearments into her neck, running his fingers over the crease in her ass again and again.

She was trembling and collapsed down against his chest, let her body be bucked up with the force of his effort.

“Sit up,” he husked. “Sit up and let me see us.”

She moaned and pushed a hand against his chest, got herself upright by sheer force of will alone. Castle drew his knees up and she balanced there, sprawled against his upper thighs until his hands caught her hips again.

He lifted her up himself, alone, barely hanging on to it, and then pushed little thrusts into her cunt, shallow and quick, like he was stabbing her with his cock.

She clutched his biceps and rode it, leaning in to see for herself what his thick erection looked like when it was cleaving its way through her.

Glistening, wet, angry. He fucked her with it, forcing a superficial connection, but his eyes were fixed on them, where they met, what it looked like, how he disappeared.

And then, without warning, Castle plowed straight up and high and tight, and burst out his orgasm with a roar.

She came in waves around his climax, her body pulling it upwards as if she could absorb every good and beautiful thing.

\-----

He could get used to this.

Never had that thought before, wanting to be somewhere permanently, wanting to have something, someone, that was always right there. 

Kate was asleep, a real sleep, he thought, and it was either an early night or a late nap, but they’d missed dinner and the dog probably wasn’t too happy with the meal plan. But Castle couldn’t be bothered to care.

Kate was asleep, and she’d twined herself around him to do it. An arm slid between his and his ribs, a thigh pushed between his knees, an ankle hooked around his calf, her cheek at his bicep. His injured hand was resting on her shoulder blade, out of the way, and his good hand was free to trail up and down her thigh, her side, her face.

She didn’t wake. He wondered how much sleep she’d gotten last night while he’d been out of it, and if this was any indication - none. Beckett wasn’t much of a sleeper anyway; she got four hours and wanted up and out again, so this was unusual and a gift.

It would probably never happen again. If Castle was here and he was awake, then Beckett was awake and they were cramming as much sex into their time together that they could. Always how it had been. But in this moment, he couldn’t even wish for it.

Just the press of their skins together and the damp sweat of her chest against his, just the feel of her short, bristling hair under his fingers and the weight of her that seemed to hold him down.

He really liked it. 

He wanted to wake up in Belfast like this, in Marrakesh just this way. He wanted his place in Harlem to have Beckett, and the safehouse in London to find her in his bed. He wanted Kate and her body and her sarcasm and her smirk and the arch of her cheekbone under his hand like he could be sliced to ribbons with one wrong move. He wanted the heft of her thigh across his hips and the taste of her breath on his last kiss, but he wanted the low warning in her voice and the cutdowns and the stubbornness too.

Could he ask for it? Could he even say it to himself and let it out there in the ether, bouncing around, the idea that he, Richard Castle, wanted this one woman for always?

It didn’t seem fair that they had the lives they did. That her mother had been brutally murdered and her father was an unreliable drunkard, that her job was risking her life to keep those terrible things from happening to others. Didn’t seem right that his own mother had abandoned him at boarding school or that his father dictated his every last waking moment or that his job asked him to sacrifice every good and decent thing.

Didn’t seem like this was the life they were supposed to have been given. Should’ve been something else, someone else. 

Kate should have - everything she didn’t have. A man who came home every night, beautiful babies, the acclaim of the world for her achievement in the arts, the stunning respect of her peers in her advanced field, the world handed to her.

But she didn’t, and she wouldn’t, and if she kept fucking him, he wouldn’t even be able to give her just one of those things. Not even one. 

He’d never thought about his life like that before, about what he gave to another person, about what he offered, but his offerings, his prospects were zero.

She was engaging and smart and beautiful and aggressive and strong and she was building those things in his life, giving him a foundation of trust and love that she didn’t even mean to be building, replacing his messed up construction with the best, the most fulfilling- 

And he didn’t give her shit.

But maybe that was why she’d let him in this far. Maybe that was why he’d been able to even get so close, why after that first night she hadn’t completely shut him out.

It was a sneak attack on his part, his love for her the warriors inside a Trojan. It was guerilla warfare for her heart, and he could - he would - be good for her.

He would find a way.

\-----

Castle hadn’t realized he had fallen asleep until Kate was waking him with a squeeze of his ankle and a little jerk. He grunted and came up on his elbows, blinking hard, a little swimmy in his head.

“Beckett?”

“Yeah, so I went to take the dog out and your asshole friend followed me.”

“My asshole... oh, Del? Really? He followed you? Probably like a moron, if you knew he was.”

Kate seemed to stiffen. “I shook two guys who followed me from your place,” she muttered, pinching his toe. “And you stink, Castle. You need to shower.”

He grunted and rolled away from her grasp, wriggling to one side of the bed. Beckett huffed from above, and suddenly he felt her hand flat on his back and the whole weight of her leaning over him.

“Caaaa-stle. Castle, Castle, Castle. Wake up, sleepy baby.”

Castle cracked an eye and lifted his head. “You’re insane.”

“And I just took your oversized wolf to the park and picked up his oversized shit, so the least you can do is not smell so much like wolf.”

“Wolf.”

“Uh-huh,” she said slowly. Now she was crouched down in front of him and he figured maybe he was zoning in and out a little. He was tired. She tapped his forehead. “I don’t want to sleep in the wet spot - drool, dog, or sex, doesn’t matter, baby. You need to get up so I can at least change the sheets.”

“Sorry,” he slurred. “Wet spot. Yeah.”

He moved to get his hands under him, lift up, but- “Oh, fuck,” he groaned.

Kate was there, gripping him under the shoulders, a knee in the mattress as she leveraged him. “Hey, hey, okay. Let’s be careful here, Castle.”

“My wrist.”

“Yeah, I don’t know if you remember this, but it was nearly chopped off,” she muttered.

“Nearly is the key word. It-”

“Nearly is close enough.” She managed to help him upright and then he had to close his eyes to keep the bed from tilting. Kate’s fingers came to his forehead, through his hair, felt good. “And then I think I sapped all your strength fucking like rabbits-”

He grinned, felt it crooked and lopsided on his face, but he opened his eyes to share it with her. “Yeah. That was fun.”

She pressed her lips together and tried to sigh at him, but it wasn’t coming off. The smile was pushing through.

“Yeah, best way to sap my strength.”

“Shower, Castle,” she murmured, already trying to help him out.

He pushed his feet to the floor and she took his weight, and sad as that was, he did really like leaning against her, draped all over her side. She was both soft and strong, and the walk down the hall to the shower was too short.

He sighed and Kate pushed him to sit on the lid of the toilet. “Stay. Let me get the shower hot.”

Kate turned away from him and he listed to one side, let himself look as tired as he felt. Her ass was in his face, round and perfect - how could a woman so lean have an ass this wonderfully shaped? It seemed impossible. Something to ponder in the dead of night when he wasn’t sleeping but had a nice handful.

He should probably do a survey, a nice long exploratory investigation into the exact nature of such a perfect-

“Rick?”

He blinked and looked up, saw her looking down at him in consternation.

“Hey, you with me?”

“Remember when you were sick and I camped out in your bed?”

“I remember how you forced your way into my apartment and wouldn’t leave even when I tried to lock you out.”

“Can’t lock me out, baby. I’m too good.” He grinned again. 

Kate bent over him, fingers at his shoulders and skating down to his elbows, getting his hands in hers. “Yeah, I’ve noticed. No keeping you out. Was there a reason you bring that up?”

“What up?”

“How you forced yourself on me in my fragile condition-”

He grunted, narrowing his eyes at her, and she grinned back. She tugged sharply on his hand and he came to his feet, surprised by how easily that had gone. The shower was running, he realized, and steam was filling up the bathroom.

She had her head tilted, watching him, her bottom lip tucked into her teeth, and he suddenly realized had he the mental capacity or wherewithal to pay attention, she was telling him something important.

“Rick? You bring that up because...?”

“Uh. Cause. Oh.” He tried to shake his head but suddenly his wrist was pounding with his heartbeat, too fast, his body breaking out in a sweat. “You’ll have to help me. Shower. Might fall.”

She blinked.

Castle winced. “Fuck, it sounded much smoother in my head. There was - supposed to be something sexy about it. Or like. I don’t know, your ass.”

“My ass?” Both eyebrows lifted. He wasn’t sure he knew what that face meant.

“Yeah, I really like your ass. Good to hang on to.”

Teeth on her lip again. Was that good?

“In the shower. Hang on in the shower. Fuck. I’m tired.” He gave up and leaned towards her, trying not to knock her down. But she caught him.

“All right, baby. That’s fine. You’re not smooth at all, or that sexy - too rank - but I’ll shower with you.”

“Yay,” he murmured, but he heard how weak it was.

She laughed anyway.

\-----

With Castle wilting in her arms, she made a snap decision.

“Okay, new plan,” she muttered, leaning towards the bathtub. She reached an arm past the shower curtain, fumbled until she found the faucets, and then switched the flow. It immediately ceased from overhead and water began pouring into the tub.

“What are we-”

“Bath,” she insisted. “Get in, Castle. I’ve got to put the plug in the drain.”

“I... okay.” Took him a little too long for her liking, but he put his good hand to the rim and leaned into that for balance instead of her.

Beckett reached in past the tumult of water and hooked her fingers on the chain of the plug, found the end of it, pushed it hard into the drain. It never sat exactly right, the price of an old tub, and she had to skim her fingers around and around the circumference, checking for leaks.

After a second, Castle slid over the side and into the bathtub. Kate caught his upper arm before he could complete the dive, managed to keep his stitched hand out of the drink. Castle shivered and then groaned, sank back against the sloping side of the tub.

“This was a good idea,” he muttered, barely audible over the water.

Beckett left him there, arm positioned on the rim, and she stood and shucked off her shirt. It was soaked through anyway, and her jeans followed in the same condition, and Castle leaned his cheek against the porcelain and watched her through heavy-lidded eyes.

“Stay right there,” she said. “I’m gonna get a plastic bag to wrap your hand.”

He made a face. “I’m trying to find a way to make that sound dirty, but it just doesn’t.”

She found herself laughing, caught by surprise, and he grinned back but his eyes were closing. 

“Castle, don’t fall asleep in there. You’ll drown.”

“Gonna try not to.”

She had to trust that and just go, so she moved quickly from the bathroom to the hall and into her kitchen, hunting for an old grocery bag. She had a few left from her move, used to wrap the breakables, and she found them stuffed under the kitchen sink.

Kate came back with the bag and duct tape and found Castle submerged to the neck in hot water. Steam was rolling off the surface, visible in the cooler air of the bathroom, and she was jealous.

She leaned in over him, ripped the tape with one hand and her teeth, and slipped the bag over the end of his arm. His fingers made it rustle and he opened his eyes, seemed to wake up a bit; she could hear the sound his skull made as he turned his head against the tub.

“That’s good,” he murmured. “Thanks.”

Kate checked the water level, but it wasn’t quite there, so she began taping the bag around his forearm, being certain to get the folds of plastic so that no water would run inside. Castle’s fingers were rustling around in there, like he was intrigued by the sound, just playing with it, and she sat back on her haunches, glanced at the water level.

“Get in with me,” he mumbled. An eye cracked open. “That’s an order, Beckett.”

She snorted at him. He grinned. The heat felt decadent where it radiated back from the bathtub. She was in panties and underwear and clammy where her clothes had clung to her skin.

“Please,” he whimpered.

Kate’s eyes flashed to his but he hadn’t been able to keep up the facade. His pitiful look broke into another grin, a chuckle spilling out of his lips, and she sighed at him.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“What are you? from the fifties? Incorrigible?”

“Shut up.”

“What a word. Next you’ll be pulling out daddy-o and shucks.”

“You’re a fucking asshole.”

He laughed a little harder and the water rippled around him, his body sunk low. She reached out and snapped the water off, and he opened an eye to glare at her.

“It’s not full yet.”

“Don’t want your shenanigans to make it overflow.”

“Shenanigans,” he hooted.

She popped open her bra and he shut up; she slid it from her fingers and tossed it to the floor and he watched her avidly. She stood and stepped out of her panties and he sat up in the bath.

Kate put one foot in, felt the water slide like fingers up her calf-

Well, and a couple fingers as well, sliding higher than the water, skimming right up-

She sat down across from him, her ass brushing his ankles, sitting in the vee of his legs, and she leaned back against the porcelain, angling her body to avoid the faucet.

Castle stared at her; she slowly slid her legs down to his end of the tub and his hand came around her foot, inched up to her ankle, his throat working as he swallowed.

She closed her eyes and he finally sucked in a breath.

\-----

He wasn’t sure why, but they spent a good hour just soaking in the bathtub, not speaking, not moving, his body still bruised and aching and he didn’t know about hers. But maybe it was the same for her. He’d seen a mottled patchwork of blue and purple across her left side, and there was the bruise around her eye that he’d inflicted-

Oh, hell. Hell and damnation, if they were going for the fifties here. 

He had gotten in the rib shot, hadn’t he? Fuck. 

Of course he had. That was how it usually went.

That was how it usually went.

Something about that thought went in sickening circles in his brain, like a rubber duck floating in the draining water of a bathtub, getting spun around and around, stupid smile plastered to its face. It kept bouncing off all his nice smooth surfaces but he couldn’t quite hang on to the meaning of it.

What it meant for him, for them, for her.

If he weren’t so tired, he could hold on to that thought and understand it, figure it out, but it was sliding away from him, down the drain, and the two of them, together, they were silent.

He had hurt her. It hurt him, the bruise on her face, the pattern across her ribs, and he closed his eyes so he didn’t have to see it, his heart a wounded thing in his chest.

Without sight, it was just the lap of water over the sides and the faint gurgle of the imprecise plug in the drain. Kate’s feet touched his inside thighs, and he cradled them in one hand, the other arm cold and getting colder, fingers feeling the lack.

He drew his arm into his chest and dipped his elbow into the water, sighing as it warmed him, as the blood tingled in his fingertips and around the stitches. He pressed his bagged hand against his shoulder and pec, let his elbow rest on top of Kate’s stacked ankles.

He let out a breath and they drifted, both of them, on the lull of hot water. 

After a time he couldn’t measure, Kate groaned and shifted, water slipping around his skin, ripples moving as she did too. He kept his eyes closed and suddenly there was the unnatural heat of her body sliding along his and the jar of an elbow or a hand or a knee, and she was pushing him to one side.

“My neck is cramping at that end,” she murmured, her only explanation.  
Castle drew up his good hand from the water and made space for her and she sank down against his chest and laid her cheek at the top of his collarbone and tucked into his neck. All the wounded things in him that ached so badly seemed to sit down and stop mewling, and then she sighed and the breath of her made it all settle in for the night.

He put his plastic-bagged hand over her head and she laughed, a soft thing in the heat and warmth of the bath, and she batted at it, pushing the plastic away from her face. So he had to remove it, get the plastic out of her way, and she stayed while he rearranged.

Her toes at his shin, her knee at his inside thigh, her belly soft against his hip, her breasts warm and firm along his chest, and then the damp strands of hair and the hard angle of her jaw and the breath tickling him.

The essence of her in points of contact with him. And even if he didn’t have words for any of it, or have it fixed in his mind what it was, what they were, he could do this indefinitely.

He could float.

\-----


	8. Chapter 8

Kate shivered again and finally had to sit up and open the hot water tap. She pulled the plug with her toes around the chain, leaning forward to adjust the temperature. She felt Castle lay his good hand on her back, his fingers settling at her spine as if to stabilize her.

She stayed there, her breasts pressed to her knees, her cheek resting on top of them with her bruised eye tilted up. She listened to the water draining and filling the tub, and the heat slowly seeped into the bath again.

Castle’s fingers skated her side, feathered lightly against the bruised place at her ribs. He’d gotten her with a solid right, up close and teeth-clattering, and it had hurt. Still hurt. But she’d been in the middle of cleaning his wounds, trying to dig out the pieces of - she hadn’t come up with any word better for it than seaweed, but that seemed impossible - and so she had known it would be coming. She’d already had the shiner by that point, but what else could she do?

He’d been bleeding to death on her kitchen floor.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw him there, and the blood. It was so vivid in her memory. She hadn’t seen her mother’s except in photographs and now she couldn’t help drawing comparisons, wondering if the blood had been like that, wondering how her father ever had managed to make it through the apartment to find her body in the hall, with all that blood...

Water slapped against her raised knee and Kate startled back to herself, the moment, reached out to turn off the faucets. She plugged the drain again, leaning forward, still somehow within Castle’s reach, but when she was done, she didn’t settle back with him.

“Soap,” she said, laying her hand on his sternum. “You ready?”

“You gonna wash my back, Kate Beckett?”

The flash of lust that burned clear down to her toes was entirely welcome. She’d needed that, just that, a moment to knock all the blood and death right out of her head. “Yeah, baby, I’ll wash your back. If you sit up for me.”

Castle grinned and lifted a knee in the tub, knocked it into her thigh as he sat forward. She watched him come closer, their faces eye to eye in the bath, and then he shifted the remaining distance and kissed her.

His mouth was heated before it even got started, warm from the bath and his own blood, and she could taste the salt of sweat on his lips. She touched his neck with a wet hand and he shivered, his mouth pressing harder against hers, seeking. She opened for him and he came inside, stroking hard, eager and certain, sucking on her bottom lip.

Guess he was awake again.

Kate coasted her hand down his chest and settled on his abs, brushing the backs of her fingers up and down his stomach. Castle hissed between his teeth and his legs fell open, wide, and he wrapped his good arm around her shoulders and dragged her into his lap.

“No, no, we forgot soap,” she complained, backing off his aggressive kiss.

“Fuck the soap.”

“That doesn’t sound near as much fun.”

Castle growled and dropped his forehead to hers, his arm tight around her neck. He slowly let go, sat back, regarding her. “Fine. Soap. Let’s get this show on the road.”

Kate reached for the wire basket hanging over the side of the tub and took out the bar soap, rolling it around and around between her hands. It was just a regular bar of Dove, mild scent, soft suds that foamed up in her grip. She popped it back into the wire basket and wriggled her fingers at Castle.

“Where do you want me first?” she grinned.

Castle’s thighs came up in the water and framed her own; he rested his injured arm on his knee, wrapped hand dangling, and his other hand drew lazy circles on her back, nudging them closer.

“You know where I want you,” he husked. His eyes were smoky blue, that dark color that always meant serious consequences.

So she toyed with him by reaching her hands low and planting her palms just above the water line - and then moving up. Not down.

Castle lifted an eyebrow as she went and she ignored him, slicking soap up his wide chest to his shoulders, skimming his skin and reveling in it. He was so solid underneath his heated skin, such a man below the exterior. Not that he wasn’t ruggedly handsome, cut lean and lithe and dangerous-looking, but that if she closed her eyes, she still felt all that dominant male being poured up through her fingers.

He took action; he moved. He made decisions in the heat of the moment and he did the hard and frustrating things because they had to be done. He worked for every second of downtime, worked for this moment right here.

He was hard and rough and it showed in his mannerisms and his treatment of other people, and in their sex life, but it never - it never - was evident when he looked at her, when he touched her.

As he did now. His fingers so warm sliding against the cool skin of her neck until he cupped the side of her face, thumb at her ear, the heel of his hand nudging her chin.

Her fingers slipped soapy along his biceps and in towards his chest, and Castle leaned in and kissed her.

Softly. 

His mouth was warm and wet and hesitant, and he sipped from her like he didn’t dare take. She trailed her hands along his chest and then gave up trying to do an actual job of it; she just widened her knees and shifted into his kiss.

And pushed her hands down to his cock.

Castle groaned at her mouth, a rough rush of air against her lips, and she took it as a sign. His cock was already growing firm in her hands, thickening, lengthening, and she worked the skin at the head of him before squeezing down his shaft to his balls.

Castle had a rough inhale before he was leaning back against the bathtub, his hips working in tight, hard thrusts against her movements. Kate straddled his lap and watched his face as he tried to keep his eyes open.

He was beautiful when he craved her.

His eyes kept rolling back, though he forced them down every time. His gaze would catch hers and they’d both go up in flames, her hips rocking the water, and hollow inside, and his guttural grunts echoing in the bathroom.

Kate leaned in, her weight on her knees and her breasts rubbing against his chest, and she took up her rhythm in earnest, pumping him, knocking her own knuckles into her sex.

“Kate,” he groaned.

“I got you,” she hummed, touching her lips to his cheek. She was getting worked up, the tantalizing closeness of her own pleasure and the absolutely worthless way Castle clutched at her.

“Kate. Kate, I can’t-”

“Go ahead, baby. We can just drain the water and start over again.”

She twisted her wrist at the end and Castle shouted, come jetting out of his cock and thickening between them, his cock pulsing with each wave of release, a bright and strong thing in her hand.

Kate kissed him, keeping hold of his cock, still thick and proud, and Castle rasped promises into her hair as his hips still stuttered and jerked in her grip.

When he was finally done, she realized his bad arm was crushing her chest to his, and his good arm had his hand buried in her hair and gripping hard.

Kate kissed his paper-thin eyelids and then laid her body against his, releasing his cock to the water and his shaky sigh. 

They had some time; the water was still heated.

\-----

Castle sat still and endured the brush and slide of soapy Beckett against his skin, closing his eyes to keep from taking her. 

He probably shouldn’t. She had nudged his hand aside when he’d tried to reciprocate, and he figured they both could use a break, and there was a funny taste in the back of his mouth. He couldn’t remember if he’d taken those pills after the injections, and he didn’t know how to ask her if she’d followed his instructions while he was feverish - it seemed to show a lack of confidence - and now he just thought he better sleep it off.

But fuck it was nearly impossible to be a good boy when she kept touching him. She was doing it on purpose.

“I’m trying not to lose it here, Beckett,” he muttered. Her hand had run up his thigh with a washcloth, soap dissolving in the water. “You’re not helping.”

“Oh, I’m not?” So coy. 

“I’m about to push my fingers where you apparently don’t want them right now, so you’d better stop playing around.”

She snorted, leaned in close to lay a kiss against his temple. The water rocked around them. “Baby, it’s not that I don’t want them. It’s that you look a little pale.”

“What does the color of my skin have to do with where I put my fingers?”

Kate’s laughter was beautiful. He couldn’t help listing into her body when she laughed like that, and she wrapped both arms around him and held him up. “You lost a lot of blood and you’re still not right. Save it for later. When we don’t have to be gentle.”

He sucked in a laughing breath, but the images she painted in his head made his blood sing and his stomach flutter. He wanted them now, but he was actually tired, an ache in his bones that he’d never felt before. 

He had nearly lost his hand. He might have if Beckett hadn’t... if Kate. Without her, so many things might have happened.

“Time to get out,” she murmured. “Water’s cold.”

“You feel good though.” He had meant that like, but you’re okay, right?, and it had come out sexual. He should stop talking. All the words he had with her were sexual, even when he just wanted to be sure she wasn’t hurting herself for him.

“Come on. Up, up, up, Richard.” Her arms were tugging and it took a great effort to shift his feet under him and put power and strength to his legs to lift him. That couldn’t be good.

“I should - drink some water,” he said inanely. Felt like a stupid thing.

“You should. You’re probably dehydrated. Can you step out of the bathtub? The sides are high, Rick. Don’t-”

He almost tripped. Fuck, he was awake now. The lethargy of the bath was buzzed by the sharp intrusion of a bruise on his shin, but at least he hadn’t fallen flat on his face on the bathroom floor.

Beckett looked worried. “Some orange juice, I think. Get some sugar in you.”

“Yeah,” he scraped out, worried himself just a little. But sleep - if he slept, that would take care of things. The program always worked; follow the program.

Stop fucking his hot nurse. Follow the program.

“I should - sleep, I think,” he admitted, grimacing at her.

She nodded, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. “Come on. I’ve got a towel right here. And then you can crawl into bed.”

“With you?” he asked, knowing he sounded pitiful. Felt pitiful. He really wanted to cling to her, and he didn’t know where that feeling was coming from. He wanted his limbs draped over her whole body and her cooler skin pressed against his.

She was like a drink of water, the relief of her was just - more than he’d ever reckoned.

“Fine,” she sighed. But swimming around in her eyes was anxiety, and he knew it was his fault but he couldn’t seem to stop it. “Fine, I’ll crawl in with you.”

\-----

Her hands were slippery with it, warm and dark, darker than she'd have thought, so dark it stained her jeans black and made the kitchen floor into a Rothko print, a red block smudged by the black. Beckett got to her knees, crawled away from the abstract art bleeding out in the kitchen, unable to look.

Rothko, she thought, mom's favorite.

And then she came around the corner, and there she was, her mother, sprawled dark and ugly in the hallway.

Kate screamed.

She jolted awake with violence, another scream like a syrup in her mouth, sticky and metallic, but a body pinned her to the bed.

"There's no blood, it's okay, love. There's no more blood. It's okay, it's okay."

Beckett gagged on her own breathing, tried to turn her shoulder away from him, the heavy body weighing her down. She had to move, had to get out of it, and she threw off his arms and wriggled off the mattress to fall hard on the floor.

"Kate, baby-"

She jumped to her feet, cold in just a t-shirt, strange twilight through the bedroom window and casting bizarre shapes across her body. She shuffled back, slammed into the wall with a clenched teeth grunt, only to find Castle up and in front of her, hands gripping her skull and holding her there.

She blinked.

"There's no blood, Kate. It was a dream."

She had a ragged breath before she realized she was standing up in her bedroom, freezing cold from an open window, teeth chattering. The dog was howling outside the door, that lonely sound that always drove her out with him, on the leash, the two of them running through the night after something like this.

The dog. The animal keening. Might be her. Hard to - hard to know. She was ice cold in the draft, her skin numb.

No, no the window wasn't open. The dog woofed once and she could hear him thud against the door, his I'm out here and I'm not leaving. There was no blood, just black stitches scraping against her cheek where the knots came together. He'd refused bandages.

But Castle wasn't dead.

Her mother-

was dead.

She felt it again, reeling, but Castle was the thing anchoring her to the night, to the now.

He ducked and crowded close, pressed her against the wall as if she needed the support - oh, fuck, she did, she did - and his hips bones crashed into hers, pinning her.

She gulped another breath and her vision cleared, the tunnel receded, and he was still cradling her face. Beckett released her death grip on his biceps and wrapped her arms around his neck, surged forward into a kiss.

Castle grunted, caught off guard, but found her mouth, took her bite and bit her back, running his teeth over her bottom lip until she moaned. His hips knocked hard into hers, crushing his bare thigh to the thin cotton of her t-shirt, and she wormed her hands down between them, tugged it off.

Castle grinned like a wolf, the dog barked again from outside the closed door, and then he was devouring her.

She wanted to be devoured.

\----- 

She was naked and writhing hard between his body and the wall, and fuck, fuck, all he’d wanted to do was erase that terrible grief spilling out of her eyes.

Beckett seemed to need or want this more than soft words and a gentle touch; she had refused those time and again from him. But this, this she could do.

So he did it. 

Castle ignored the pulse of heat around his stitches and used that hand to grip her by the neck, his forearm braced against her sternum. Beckett growled, body bucking up against him, but he pinned her hips and skated his good hand over her outside thigh.

“Fuck,” she gasped. “Damn it. Just-”

He pressed his mouth hard to hers, stifling her cursing - he just - he didn’t want to hear her fighting off her own damn feelings when his whole soul cried out before her. Needing her to-

She groaned in his mouth and he lost it.

Castle cupped her sex with a rough grip, causing Beckett to go up on her toes against the wall. One of her hands gripped his shoulder, the other slammed back against the plaster for balance, her gasp so loud it seemed to shatter his control. He pushed his middle finger through her folds, drawing out the heat and the arousal, feeling her pulse throb in her clit.

“Fuck, fuck,” she whispered, clutching his neck and rising up to meet his hand.

He started a fast rhythm, knowing she couldn’t bear to draw it out right now, not when she’d been gripped by such a beast of a nightmare. He got it, he really did, how it could take hold and not let go, and he really - he wanted to be the one who made her forget since he’d brought it in with him.

“Castle,” she moaned. “Oh - oh-”

He slipped a second finger to work her sex, and now finally the wetness began to soak through her folds, pulled by his touch, overcoming her horror. He ripped his mouth from hers and started a biting trail down her neck, sucking hard at her pulse where it echoed a hard beat that he felt between her legs.

She was bucking up to his touch, her thigh coming up to catch on his bare hip. He took it as a sign and penetrated her cunt with three fingers, going deep, going fast, not giving her a chance to breathe.

Kate yelped, her cheek crashing into the top of his head as he sucked on her neck, working her flesh between his teeth, worrying the spot where her blood beat so furiously, racing away from the darkness. He stained the pale skin of her throat with the scrape of his scruff, knowing it would be tender in the morning, but wanting it, wanting her to remember how he could help, how he was what she needed in the middle of the night.

His hand was coated in her arousal, wet and thick, fingers slipping around in her folds and pushing up inside her with shallow thrusts. She mewled and opened her mouth at his temple, breathing hard, sexy, her hand still clutching the back of his neck.

When she came it surprised them both - a false start that made her suck in a breath, and then she was trembling and gushing into his palm, her wetness flooding him as her orgasm sent her head back against the wall.

Castle chose that moment to shift her a little higher, a grip on her cunt, a grip on her neck, and all he had to do was press his hips into hers to feel his cock angle for her.

She hiked her thigh up higher on his hip and moaned.

Castle plunged inside her.

Beckett shouted, both legs clamped around him now, and he started to pound away, ignoring every instinct that fought to hold himself back, fought to make it loving. She’d never take it, and his cock ached for her, and she was moaning his name into his ear and gasping please, please like he was hurting her with every withdrawal.

He crushed her breasts to his chest, thumb on her throat where her heart beat so wildly, and her arm tightened around his neck. He beat a rapid tattoo inside her, going deep, forcing himself so deep, before pulling back only to ram inside her again.

She started to keen, an unending sound that reverberated in his lungs with every breath he stole from her. No words now, just desperation, and he felt his balls contract painfully close, his body shaking with need, his grip tighten on her throat.

“Please,” she rasped, sucking in a startlingly loud breath. “Please.”

He roared out his release, slamming his hips into hers and pinning her to the wall, falling against her as his knees gave way with the intensity of his orgasm. Kate moaned and writhed under him, working her hips in these dirty little circles, drawing him out as his cock pulsed.

It wasn’t enough. Wasn’t damn enough, and he staggered back with her still clinging to him, angled his body to fall over her on the bed.

His wrist exploded brightly with pain, but Castle got a knee under him and laid over her, dragged his mouth down her body, heading for the sharp scent of her cunt.

“Rick,” she moaned.

Fuck, fuck, it was the most amazing sound, the way she needed him so badly.

He put his mouth on her and she nearly came apart, knees hitting his ears as she tightened around him. Castle pushed his good hand up her body and slammed her back down to the bed; she arched and brought her sex up into his mouth.

He licked.

Kate shivered and dropped back to the mattress, a moan rolling through her that made the hair stand up on his neck. He stroked his tongue along her soaking wet folds, sucked up the juice he’d made, tasting something dark and full-bodied that he suddenly realized was himself.

He’d come inside her and it was mixed with her cunt so that her taste was fuller, richer, bursting to life on his tongue and in his mouth. Holy fuck, it was erotic to know he’d marked her so thoroughly, he’d claimed her, he’d planted himself inside her so deeply that she was beginning to take him on, his flavors, his ways - his need, his love.

He drew his good hand back down her body, toying with her belly button before pressing out her thigh. She was groaning from the pillow, little gasps when he struck her sensitive clit, whimpering when he retreated. He suckled and he cajoled her hooded clit, came back to the slit and teased, darted inside like a shallow fuck.

Beckett began to moan. Sharp noises in her chest when he traced a finger at her clit and down the outside of her lips. 

“Castle.”

He trailed along her ass cheek mashed to the bed, came in tight where her crack gave way to her anus, pushed at the hole. Beckett gasped, bucking up into his mouth, and he had to clamp his injured forearm over her hips to hold her in place.

Castle nudged her ass with a knuckle while he pushed his tongue to her clit, sucking it hard against his teeth, and when she came, she exploded.

He used his tongue to flick hard against her clit, prolonging the gripping agony of her orgasm, and then he released her with a wet sound, coming up her body to lay pressed at her side.

Exhaustion crept inside.

Beckett shivered under him and he slung an arm over her waist, wet fingers on her hip, his nose touching her jaw, sprawled as best he could not to crush her.

Her hand came up to the side of his face, slowly, gingerly, and then her palm pressed to his cheek, stayed.

His eyes slipped shut and she let out a long breath.

\-----

Beckett laid on her back in the bed, Castle's arm snug around her waist, the dog still softly whining outside the door now that it was quiet.

Castle was asleep, which meant she shouldn't have done that, which meant he wasn't yet okay again - he never fell asleep after just one round. He was the one who'd be curled at her back trying to start something, playing with her until she was worked up and crazy with it.

Well, she was worked up and crazy but not with that. Or maybe partly it was sex - she'd usually turn to him if he was here and she felt like this, but she couldn't. Not when he was practically passed out after just one time.

One time? And then the bath, and before that too, and earlier-

She was expecting too much out of him; she needed too much. She had to cut this off; not cool to need him in the middle of the night when he was obviously not strong enough. Fuck, just 24 hours ago he was bleeding to death on her kitchen floor.

Which she was having serious issues with. Serious fucking issues. And her mom was mixed up in it, and the damn sex always helped but doing that now would be the epitome of selfish bitch.

She didn't want to be a selfish bitch, but she had a feeling she was. A lot of the time. Most of the time, be honest. Most.

The dog was pitiful. She should get up and open the door for him.

Kate wormed out from under Castle's arm, squeezing through the small space, and when she managed to get to the floor, she stood cautiously, eyes on the window.

They'd pulled the blinds in her bedroom and hung up an old coverlet over the window - she didn't have curtains to block out the light - but she was still wary of her shadow falling across it. Though she hadn't been, and neither had he, when he'd fucked her up against her bedroom wall and then collapsed into bed to work her up and off again.

Beckett ignored the dog for a moment more and went to the window, slid back the material to glance outside. The apartment building was angled so that she only saw the frontage, the avenue just below her, the trees that blocked the view. Her living room window looked out over the fire escape and alley between the buildings, where the man had stood all day.

She would just go check. And the dog too; Cujo needed a pat on the head before he would be convinced that everything was fine. When they were alone, he barely cared. He came and slept at the foot of her bed, sometimes got huffy with her tossing and turning and got down again, but when Castle was here, Cujo was always trying to stake a claim.

She opened the bedroom door and the dog stayed in the hall, his animal eyes peering up at her, green-red and glowing.

Kate shivered but ducked down to skim her fingers down his back as she moved, down the hallway and into the living room. Cujo trotted behind her, no longer whining, and she could hear him breathing, his open-mouthed pant of contentment.

He came up to her side at the living room window and she angled so she could stroke the top of his head - nearly at her hip, he was so big now. He had to have been not much more than a puppy when Castle had gotten him, though he'd been so big even then. Now he looked more wolfhound than wolf some times, his tall shoulders and his long stride.

But he had the wolf's ears and snout, the wolf's look about him when he confronted Castle upon arrival.

The man was still out there. The light of a his phone was illuminating his face quite clearly, and Beckett couldn't believe that anyone in the CIA would be so stupid. Even a desk jockey. Even a guy plucked from the secretarial pool who was more personal assistant than secret agent couldn't possibly be that dumb.

Which left one thing - he wasn't. He wanted her to know he was down here. He wanted her to feel cornered and caged, trapped. 

The blue light of his phone - was he playing a game - caught the edge of his face and the sharp shadows made it difficult to discern, but she thought - she thought - he was grinning.

Fuck, he was enjoying this. Cat and mouse and she was the fucking mouse.

Kate gripped the dog's leather collar and shook him a little. "Let's go downstairs, Cuj. What do you say?"

Time to deal with this.

\-----


	9. Chapter 9

At the last second, she remembered what her father had said about bringing her gun, but she was on suspension and getting into it with a weapon seemed a bad idea. If her neighbors reported her, if the CIA came in response - she hadn't been thinking any of these things when she'd taken the dog on his chain and brought Cujo down the stairs.

But she had her big-ass wolfdog and she just wanted a nice conversation with the man loitering below her fire escape at nine o'clock at night. No biggie.

"You get to be ferocious," she murmured to Cujo, patting the top of his head as he stayed on the landing just above her head. He was waiting on her; he liked to watch her descend and then come galloping hard and fast down the whole flight of stairs.

She heard his feet on the steps, thundering, and she gave him as much of the chain as she could, the leather strap loose in her hand just in case. 

Cujo flew. He was graceful, not at all awkward or clumsy on the stairs. He took them in broad leaps and his body stretched out and coiled back, this amazing living breathing flying beast. At the bottom, he spun in a few circles, he was so happy to be out, tangling the chain, and then he sat on his haunches, completely poised to take off again.

Beckett came down at a more sedate pace, met him at the bottom and couldn't help rubbing his ears and cupping his muzzle. Cujo licked around at her fingers and whined a little in his happiness, and then she gave him a stern face and straightened.

"Time for business," she told him. "Attention."

Cujo went rigid, snapped his teeth and got out a barely held back snarl at her command. Castle had trained him haphazardly, but it had been Beckett who drilled the commands into him, teaching Cujo when he was allowed to unleash his wild side and when it had to be kept tame. If he was on his chain and Beckett was present, she’d trust the dog around a child, and five months ago she couldn’t have said that.

She also knew that Cujo was as good as any weapon, given the right provocation.

Beckett pushed open the front door and wrapped her fist loosely in the leather strap. Cujo stalked at her side, still at attention, the hair raised on the back of his neck. When they got to the corner of the building, she could see the man just below her fire escape.

He saw her at the same moment, and she was mollified to realize she’d caught him by surprise. He stood up straighter, and his hands flexed in a way that let her know he had assessed the dog and was calculating his chances.

Beckett walked down the long, dark alley towards the man, trying to form an impression of his capabilities. He’d rocked forward on the balls of his feet, ready for action, and his hands were held loosely at his sides - ready to draw on her. But nothing in his body language held that tension or carried any of that threat, and his demeanor belied his responsiveness.

She didn’t know what to think.

She approached recklessly, hoping to continue catching him by surprise, certain that Black had her figured for a loose cannon of a cop, probably a danger to others - (a danger to his son? she hadn’t thought of that. Maybe Black thought she was going to lead him to ruin).

Deleware went back on his heels and pushed his hands into his pocket, phone going with it. Beckett was suddenly certain that he was recording this encounter - or at least that he had an open phone line to Black.

Interesting. She could do something with that.

“So are you another one of those CIA assholes here to harass me, or did the Captain send you to baby-sit me while I’m on suspension?”

Not even a flicker went over the man’s face, but at least that was a little misinformation the agent would take back to his handler. 

“I’m sorry,” Deleware said smoothly. “Do I know you?”

For one brief, disconcerting second, she bought it.

He was that good.

“No,” she said coldly. “You don’t know me. So why don’t you move along now.”

Deleware gave her a slow smile. “Just standing here.”

“I don’t appreciate your ‘standing’ here for the last nine hours under my window. In case no one told you, I’m a police officer and I carry a weapon - and I’m not afraid to use it. Maybe they told you that too, huh, how unstable I am?” 

She was using everything she had to prod at this guy, but he wouldn’t be baited. His you’re a stranger to me and yet you’re still talking face was exceptional, and it was messing with her head just a little - just enough - to keep her on her toes.

“Unstable,” he echoed. “Well, ma’am, I’m not sure if that’s a threat or if you need help.” 

“You pick,” she answered softly. “Since you want to play this game.”

Deleware blinked, but that was the only sign of his assimilating her veiled threat.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not interested in staring at each other all night,” she smiled. “I want answers or I want you to fuck off. Do you understand?”

All the careful innocence wiped off Deleware’s face just like that. What came up in place of it was something sinister and merciless and now she understood what her father had seen and why he had said take your weapon, Katie.

Fucking hell. 

This was no ordinary government employee.

He was not the man Castle thought he was; Agent Deleware was more than just some desk jockey. 

“Are we going with threat then?” Deleware said smoothly.

Beckett put her hand out to the dog, fingers flat, and Cujo came right up against her thigh without even the command, a low warning bark as he made his stance. 

Fuck, she loved this damn dog. She really did. She had made this dog, turned him from unruly beast to biddable wolf with a little work and time. 

Deleware - something in him paused. Went still, like a predator listening for another predator in the woods. Cujo’s ears went back, lips peeled against his teeth, and the growl was deep in his chest, a warning.

Well, that was fast. Beckett really hadn’t expected to get here quite this soon - if at all. She’d been expecting only to roust the guy, have him report back something of a failure to his boss, giving Castle the chance to recover in peace.

“Threat?” she said calmly. “Do you feel threatened?”

She hoped - suddenly and swiftly - that it wasn’t complete arrogance on her part, thinking she could meet the man in a dark alley with a wolf she’d trained like a police dog, ready to go on the attack.

Cujo was a dog, but he was also part wolf, and a wolf could never be tamed.

“Looks like you’re the one who feels threatened, bringing your big, bad killer Cujo out here.”

Kate struggled to keep it off her face. That was either direct knowledge he shouldn’t at all have, or it was the exact same thing she’d done herself - naming a beast after his literary namesake. 

She had to be careful how she answered. Every word was going to be analyzed and parsed, she had no doubt. Black might not know Castle was upstairs in her apartment, but he knew she was in on whatever was going down. 

“I’m just walking my dog,” she said finally. “Out for an evening stroll, let him do his business. Just like you’re just standing here. Right?”

She wanted so very badly to call him by name and really throw him off his game, but that would be as good as admitting Castle was upstairs. 

“Right,” the man answered, smiling slowly. Chilling smile, not quite back to the guileless I’m just standing here stranger who had smiled at her before. There was a lack to it now, and she didn’t know what it meant, but Cujo snarled and gave a rippling bark that made Kate’s hair stand on her neck.

It was time to go. It was-

Cujo coiled.

“Stay,” she whipped out.

But Deleware was moving - maybe in self-defense, maybe not, she’d never know - because Cujo was springing forward and snapping his jaw around Deleware’s wrist.

It must have hit the man’s nerves and tendons exactly right because his fingers spasmed open and the knife dropped and clattered against the sidewalk. Kate was frozen, stunned by the blade she hadn’t seen coming, and Cujo was hanging from the man’s wrist, snarling and growling between his clenched teeth, scrabbling with his paws at Deleware’s suit.

Beckett snapped. “Release, release!” And she darted forward, the leash wrapped around her fist again and again until she ran out of leather. She grabbed the knife first, then reached out with her leather-wrapped hand for Cujo’s muzzle, the lower mouth where the hinge was in his jaw.

She squeezed and Cujo fought her, fought that instinctive response to release, but the wolf finally opened his mouth and the teeth came out of flesh and the blood was spattered across Cujo’s muzzle, warm and wet.

Beckett drew the short chain on Cujo and pulled him back, but she wasn’t apologizing, fucking hell no, she was not. Deleware was bleeding profusely, the blood staining his jacket, but eerily, not a word came out of his mouth.

No cursing, no swearing at the dog, no nostrils flaring, no vitriolic temper. No crazed indignation either.

Deleware was shucking his jacket and backing away, wrapping the material around the meaty party of his forearm and wrist where Cujo had gotten him.

“Good dog,” she gasped finally, the knife still in her other hand. She took another step back and pulled Cujo with her, Cujo who was bristling and growling still, blood gleaming in the dark moon. “Heel, heel,” she insisted, calling the dog back to her, trying to tame the wolf.

Deleware kept distancing himself, leaving the narrow alley between the buildings, but he never turned his back on them. Only when he seemed to sense she had Cujo moderately under control again did he begin to pick up his pace and finally take his eyes off of her.

Kate was left shaking on the corner, trying to fathom how any of that had happened.

\-----

Beckett had herself under control by the time she climbed the stairs back to her apartment. Cujo had reverted to dog form, bounding up the steps - or attempting it, choking himself on the short leash she gave him. Her hands were still slick with sweat though and she kept running the encounter through her head, trying to figure out where she’d gone wrong.

The knife had just - she hadn’t seen that coming, and she wasn’t sure that Deleware hadn’t read the situation completely correctly and drawn a knife in self-defense. At the same time, the blade had been hidden, and in his hand when Cujo’s jaws had clamped down around the arm, and the knife had fallen and that had triggered the wolf to sink his teeth deep.

Beckett had been teaching Cujo to apply pressure but not to bite, and she’d even pulled in a professional dog trainer to work with them - a guy from the K9 squad. Months of work, and she would have said that Cujo would never draw blood.

But he had. He had. And now she didn’t know what that meant. The dog apparently thought he’d done his job well, because he kept coming back to her with this tongue-hanging grin, nudging his head up into her hand for scratching. He’d want a reward inside too, and she was still shaken enough to be afraid Cujo entirely deserved it.

When she opened the front door, Castle was pacing the living room. He turned on his heel and stopped dead in the middle of her rug, blinking at her.

“You - you okay?” he rasped. His eyes darted to the dog at her side. “Holy fuck, did Cujo bite you?”

She shook her head, hand going down to Cujo’s head, cupping the wolf’s skull and tugging him close. Automatic, the gesture, but she found herself protecting him. “No, not me. He didn’t bite me.”

“He bit someone else?” Castle said. He looked rough - all ragged edges, like he hadn’t had enough sleep. Like he was still kind of out of it.

“He bit Deleware.”

“Oh, fuck,” Castle sighed, rolling his eyes. His feet seemed to unstick from the floor and he came towards them then, holding his hands out to catch her by the shoulders. 

But she saw him wince when his injured wrist bent back, and he dropped that hand, hugging her awkwardly, the rough stubble scratching her cheek as he came close. 

“I thought you - I don’t know. I had a weird dream and you were gone,” he said quietly. His fingers lifted to tangle in the hair at the nape of her neck, but he quickly released her, stepping back. “He bit Deleware, huh? Deleware’s an annoying little snot, but-”

“Deleware is far, far more than that,” she interrupted. She held up a staying hand to Castle, leaned down to unhook Cujo from the leash. “Let’s get you cleaned up, sweet boy. Come on.”

She stood and led the dog towards the kitchen; he followed easily because he knew the treats were there. She hoped to clean him up before she gave him a green bone, get the blood off his maw.

“Richard, how well do you know that man?” she asked, taking a dishcloth from the handle of the oven. “Deleware.”

Castle shot her a bewildered look. “Why?”

“Because he had this on him,” she said, and pulled the knife out of the front pocket of her hooded sweatshirt. It had some of Deleware’s own blood on it and she held it delicately, unsure of what to do with it.

“Is that blood?” Castle noted immediately, coming to stand close to her, peering at the blade. He took it from her, holding it with two fingers by the blade. “That’s blood. His blood? How did...”

Castle’s words trailed off as his gaze shifted down to Cujo. He took the washcloth from her and knelt at the dog’s side, gripped the leather collar to inspect Cujo’s muzzle.

“I don’t know which happened first - Deleware drew the knife or Cujo attacked-”

“He drew a - wait. Deleware drew a knife on you?”

“On the dog?” she said, not sure.

“No,” Castle muttered, standing again. “No. A trained agent - even a fucking desk jockey does not carry knives into surveillance. This isn’t some run of the mill knife either, Kate.”

“I’m - I don’t know what to say. Only that Deleware isn’t who you think he is. He clearly had training - good training - and he read the situation well.”

“He read the situation?” Castle scraped out harshly. “What situation? You’re a woman walking her dog; he’s a fucking CIA agent. This is not supposed to be escalating on the street in fucking broad daylight.”

“It’s night, you bastard. And don’t yell at me-”

“I’m not fucking yelling at you,” he roared. Castle spun around, still with the knife in one hand and the bloodied washcloth with the other, heading jerkily for the front door.

Beckett raced around him, stopping his forward progress with a hand on his chest, nudging him back. “Castle.”

“He fucking pulled a knife on you. You’re a damn civilian-”

“I’m a cop-”

“To an agent, you’re a civilian-”

“And you?” she hissed, shoving back, away from the door. “You think I’m just a civil-”

“Fucking hell,” he growled. “Of course not. This isn’t a conversation about me, Beckett. Or you. This is a fucking - he drew a knife on you.”

“On the dog. Cujo was primed to attack - and he did - snapped his jaws around Deleware’s forearm and sank his teeth in.”

“Well, he’s got wolf in his blood. I’m - fuck, he’s probably not the kind of animal to have as a pet in the city. I didn’t think of that, it’s on me, Beckett, my fault; hell, I should take him somewhere, get rid of him. Can’t have him biting you. But shit - Deleware can’t be drawing a knife on my gir-”

Silence.

She lifted an eyebrow and his mouth closed, face flushed. He actually didn’t look very good, and she knew he should be sleeping - he desperately needed to rest, recover from a horrific amount of blood loss.

“I’ve trained him,” she said to that. “I’ve got a guy from the K9 unit helping me. He knows not to draw blood. He was - pushed too far tonight. He sensed danger from Deleware and he was right - the guy was pulling a knife. He did what he thought was necessary.”

“He can fucking bite Deleware, I don’t give a shit. It’s obvious now that good ole Del’s a fucking snake. But the dog can’t be out of control like that, Beckett. It can’t be drawing blood.”

“You’re not getting rid of my dog, you asshole.”

He blinked; his eyes dropped to Cujo. “No? Well, sorry to say it, wolf. No offense but if you hurt Kate, I’ll break your neck myself.”

Kate opened her mouth to protest, but suddenly Castle was gripping her by the back of the neck and dragging her in close, too close. His mouth attacked her, a furious kiss that had his teeth drawing a little blood of his own, sucking it from her bottom lip only to come after her again.

It didn’t escape her notice that through the whole kiss, Cujo only whined and knocked into the back of her knee, looking for his treat before trotting back to the kitchen and scratching at the cabinet door where his bones were kept.

He didn’t care at all that Castle was mauling her.

But Deleware had made one small movement inside his jacket and Cujo had drawn blood.

Just then, Castle growled and stroked his tongue hard over hers before letting her go. His bad hand was held up against his chest, cradled there, and his good hand was gripping her by the jaw and cheekbone, his gaze intense.

“He pulled a knife on you and I fucking want to to know why.”

Castle let go of her and started hunting for his clothes, grabbing his boxers from the floor in front of the couch.

\-----

She took his clothes. He was standing in only boxer briefs in the middle of the living room, and he’d do it - he’d go downstairs like that and fucking punch Deleware in the face - but Beckett wasn’t going to let him past her without some violence.

He was so tired of doing violence to her. So damn tired of hurting her.

But he didn’t know what else to do. Deleware could not treat her like that, his father couldn’t - it wasn’t acceptable. “Beckett-”

“No,” she insisted, his jeans clutched against her chest. “You’re in no condition.”

“I can-”

“No, you can’t. Rick, I know you’re - upset for me, and the dog - but it was a situation of my own making-”

“He can’t pull a knife-”

“Take it up with him later, Richard. Right now you need to go back to bed. Don’t you think this is exactly what your father is hoping to do? Draw you out into the open. Confirm his suspicions about exactly where you are and what I’ve done.”

He crossed his arms over his chest but - whoa, fuck - that hurt. It hurt a lot, his whole wrist aching deep to the bone. Even with the program, he knew this wasn’t the kind of injury he could ignore.

He’d have to report in for physical therapy soon enough; he’d have to go back in. In the meantime, he didn’t want his father calling the fucking shots. 

But he didn’t want Beckett getting abused by his father’s damn lackeys, getting harassed just because he had gone to her for help. He could have said he’d been confused by the blood loss, but he hadn’t been. He’d made each decision so clearly, with the end result in mind, and it had worked. He was alive still.

“Rick? Are you hearing me?”

He blinked and came back to the moment, this moment he’d focused so intently upon finding once more, alone in that plane and the darkness threatening to close him down for good. He’d wanted - he had known every second, been certain at every step that he had to absolutely make it to Beckett to survive.

No hesitation, no confusion, no delirium. 

He’d been right to avoid his father - he still didn’t know what to make of the pirates, of his having been placed there as bait, purposefully, without his knowledge or preparation or back-up. Until he figured that out, he was going to be careful of John Black.

And if he’d sent Deleware as a message, the only thing Castle could read into that encounter wasn’t good.

For one, I know where she lives, I know who she is, I know her.

For another, You can’t protect her from me.

It gave him chills, and yet his brain was still asking, why? Why was he wary of his own father when it came to her? And now, to his own life? He had never been given reason to doubt his father’s intentions.

But he did now. And maybe he had all along, or else why would he be here, endangering Kate for no good reason?

Suddenly her fingers were against his forearm, cradling his injured wrist. Soft and delicate when so much of their interactions were harsh, crude, demanding.

“Rick? Baby, you need to go back to bed. Okay? Please, please just go back to bed and leave it alone.”

He’d scared her. Was scaring her. He was having trouble keeping his mind centered on the here and now.

“You lost a lot of blood, Castle. You need to go back to bed.”

“Are you coming?” he found himself saying, some of his furious hurt soothed by the cool of her fingers. “I’ll go if you go with me.”

“Of course, of course,” she said in a rush. Her fingers skimmed up his arm to his elbow; she was orienting him towards the hallway, nudging on him. “I’m going too.”

“Okay,” he said listlessly, letting the rest of it drain away from him.

He was so tired. He just wanted to sleep, to sleep and know she slept beside him.

Like it had been on the plane, it was so clear to him what he wanted. What in his life was at all worthwhile.

Beckett.

\-----

She stayed awake, leaning against the headboard with his head in her lap, his body sprawled across her bed. He’d stayed awake for quite a long time, looking up at her as if to reassure himself, and then his exhaustion had crashed over him and he’d been gone.

She stroked her palms over his shoulders and down his chest, over and over, soothing both of them. She knew she was still hyped from the interaction with Deleware, wondering what the fuck she’d stepped into, what Castle was into. She didn’t really know him, did she? 

No, that wasn’t at all true. She knew him. She knew him.

Whatever the details were, no matter, made no difference. She knew what kind of man he was, and what he gave to her was everything. She’d kidded herself for a while, she had pretended it was some fantastic sex that was safe for him to explore without worrying about foreign spies or divided loyalties or international betrayal. She’d said to herself that she was his fuck buddy in the States, the perfect release, but she hadn’t believed it for long.

He’d come to her when he was dying. He had come to her. She wasn’t stupid and she wasn’t the type to stick her head in the sand.

She was a refuge for him, safe harbor. She’d do whatever it took to remain that way, to not get pulled into the politics of his job, but she couldn’t do her own job, live her life, if John Black was going to put a man on her and fuck around.

Something would have to be done.

Last year, she might have cut her losses and tossed him out. Last year she might have even believed she still could. But she knew that wasn’t possible. 

He’d come back - he always did. He’d pick the locks or sit outside in her hallway drinking the wine he’d grabbed for them or he would wait for her just outside the precinct. He would haunt her, and not just because Rick Castle had no understanding of personal boundaries, but because she found herself thinking about him when he wasn’t around, wondering.

And now her wondering had a specific target and lurid images behind it - him bleeding out in someone else’s kitchen, dying on the floor without even a friendly face to sit beside him and hold his hand.

Beckett spread her hands at his chest, palms flat to the warm skin, and she leaned in over him, his head pushed into her belly, deep in her lap. It felt - it felt so good, the weight of him at her thighs and between her legs, and he was only sleeping.

No, no, she wasn’t tossing him out. He was a fucking bully at every turn, but he was doing work no one else could do, and he had found something in her that no one else had.

He had come to her. No one in her life would have done that, looked to her for help, entrusted themselves so completely.  
She didn’t deserve it, she definitely wasn’t built to be that kind of person for him, but he’d already cast himself out into the void. It was a done deal. He was a body hurtling through the black towards her and she had fucking better catch him.

Damn it. She hadn’t wanted this; she didn’t know what to do with this. 

But if he could just - if all she had to do was call in favors and get him bandaged from time to time, fuck themselves silly the other times - maybe it would work. Maybe it would do her some good.

God, she hoped so. She really - just - hoped she could do this. For once, she actually didn’t want to kick this out of her bed, slam the door in the face of what could be - something really fun.

And the CIA... fucking hell, she was interested despite herself.

What the hell was going on?

\-----

Castle nuzzled closer, liking the sweat-scent of her just below her deodorant and the lotion of her skin. “Yeah,” he mumbled. He wasn’t tired, but it was so nice plastered against her side, drifting heavily. “But I’m okay.”

“Tell me,” she insisted. “Before you landed the plane in my backyard.”

“Knew had to get close, close as I could,” he said. He heard how that sounded, a little needy, and he cleared his throat and sank back against his own pillow again. “I took the plane from a drug dealer in Somalia. Knew of the guy before - makes international runs to a couple places in Mexico for distribution.”

“If you... when you know about things like that, Rick, why don’t you take care of it?”

He was confused. Take care of his arm? He’d wrapped it as best he could. “What?”

“You know for sure that a drug dealer is shipping to Mexico - and we both know that stuff goes through our border and into the hands of people here. Even in this city, we have Mexican cartel. You know about it and yet - you’ve done nothing?”

He blinked and tilted back to look at her. She was lying down with him, probably to appease him, but she had propped her elbow on her pillow and laid her cheek on her hand, frowning.

“I... it’s not my job. I don’t work Mexican cartels.”

“But you were in Somalia and you went to a contact you knew had a plane.”

“That’s why I have those contacts,” he said, still confused. “I’m not sure where I went wrong in this.”

“You’re not wrong,” she huffed, but her eyebrows were still knit together. “I just - I’m a cop. I think like a cop. If it’s against the law, I arrest him. I don’t keep his name in my back pocket to use later. That’s - that’s considered police corruption.”

God, she was amazing. She just - she had no idea how precious few people had her sense of ethical justice, of righteousness.

“That’s because you’re a very good person,” he murmured, shifting his good hand out to cup her jaw. He rubbed his thumb over her lips. “You never compromise.”

“I don’t want to preach at you,” she sighed.

“It’s not how my world works,” he admitted. “We don’t operate like that.” 

“So you took a plane from a drug dealer. How’d you get to Somalia?”

“Tug boat I stole from the pirates.”

He felt her grin of amusement against his palm. “Stealing right and left, aren’t you, Castle?”

“Do what it takes,” he said back easily. But she sobered, her eyes dark in her face, dark in the dim room. He went on, trying to distract her. “I was on a cargo vessel - empty - set up in international waters. I was given a set of coordinates by my father and told to wait for a meeting.”

“A meeting.”

“Apparently with pirates,” he said lightly. But he didn’t feel light about it. “I was out there thinking I was headed to a friendly, but he was setting me up for a different encounter altogether.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Pissed with me, making a point. I don’t - I honestly have no idea. I thought he - never thought he’d purposefully set me as bait and not even tell me. I had no prep for it, no weapons. I was a sitting duck.”

Her lips were twisted; she didn’t look happy at all. Well, he didn’t feel too happy about it either.

“Damn,” he swore lightly. “I just didn’t know who to trust. Except you. You’re the only one I got if he’s been - if he just doesn’t - I don’t know. Maybe I’ve been burned. They don’t tell you when you’re burned, don’t want to give you the heads up, but you usually see the Men In Black coming for you. You know? You get a not-so-friendly escort to a farm somewhere off the map and an interrogation.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. So it’s - I guess it’s not that. I just couldn’t figure why he’d do that to me.”

“Are you sure it was him?”

He wanted to be glib about it; he wanted to go on professing his I don’t know. But he did. He knew. He’d known last year when he’d started giving her military training in self-defense, a few moves that only intelligence services knew. He’d known it when Dr King had approached him in the little break room and confidentially suggested he keep certain things out of his debrief.

Fuck.

“I’m sure,” he said finally, staring across the pillow at her. “And I - I’m sorry I’ve dragged this shit to your door, Kate. I really am.”

She shook her head, reaching up to close her fingers around his hand. She kissed his palm. “No, don’t worry about me. Not my shit, Castle. I just don’t want you out there when you can barely stand up.”

He let out a breath, grateful.

He had her. Even if she didn’t want to be had. He had her on his side at least.

\-----


	10. Chapter 10

“Fuck,” she got out, struggling out of his arms.

“Where you going?” he drawled. He’d been in and out of sleep the past few hours, but he’d been mostly awake, enjoying the quiet, idly dissecting his Somalia situation.

But she was pulling on a shirt, a bra, hunting through the junk on her bedside table for her phone.

“Beckett?”

Her eyes snapped up to his. “I forgot. I have to call the police shrink and pass the test in order to get reinstated.”

“Pass the test?”

“Not be crazy for a couple hours.” She shrugged. “Show a little remorse, shit like that.”

“Wait. What?”

She popped the elastic of her panties as she readjusted, and he couldn’t help but watch the way her fingers slid under the material, entranced. And then it came back to him, what she’d said.

“Hang on, Beckett.” He lifted up and reached for her, but his wrist - fuck. Castle scooted to the edge of the mattress but she was already sinking down beside him, her hand on his shoulder, pushing him back.

“Not going anywhere yet.”

“Wait. What’d you say about being reinstated?”

“I got suspended,” she said, matter of fact. “Five days pending psych eval.”

“Fuck, Beckett. What happened?”

Her head tilted, a quirk of her lips. “You know, you’re the first person who hasn’t asked what did you do?”

Castle managed to get upright, sitting up against the head of the bed. “Not saying it wasn’t your fault,” he chuckled, smirking at her.

She slapped his chest for it, but he reached up with his good hand to catch her fingers. 

“What happened,” he repeated.

“Your plane,” she murmured, sighing a little. 

“Shit. My fault then-”

“No, not your fault,” she said, leaning back now with him. She had already dialed, the phone pressed up to her ear as she waited. But her fingers came out and skimmed the side of his cheek in some strange, tender move. Then her hand dropped and her face hardened. “I got a lead and they wouldn’t listen to me and it’s a fucking old boys’ club. So who the fuck cares.”

“You do.” He didn’t try to touch her. “You care, love.”

She frowned fiercely at him and opened her mouth, but then he heard the line click over and her gaze went inward, listening.

He sat back and listened to her making an appointment with the department shrink. Apparently she was supposed to have checked in yesterday and she hadn’t. He checked the time - it was late, nearly ten - and he was surprised she’d gotten in touch with someone.

Must be some kind of support service for NYPD officers, mandatory 24-hour on-call. He was impressed. That boded well. When she ended the call, Castle took the phone from her, slid over her body to deposit it on the bedside table. 

She was smirking at him. He wasn’t interested in that though; he wanted to know about her mandatory leave. “So you gotta sit and make up stories to a shrink, and then what?”

Beckett frowned. “I’ve five days leave. And then I get back on my team, back to the same shit. I’m putting in my time until homicide.”

“Homicide. And your mom’s case.”

She stiffened. “I’m - already working that case.”

“They let you open your mom’s case?” he said, sitting up and gripping her knee. “Kate. Holy-”

“No. No, they-” Beckett’s eyebrows knit together and she glanced away from him. Her throat worked and she was so rigid under his hand, at his side, that it hit him.

She had gotten the case out of archives again. She was working it alone. She was sneaking it, using the detective’s badge to bully other agencies, precincts, going at it.

He should have realized. 

Fuck.

He squeezed her knee and then released her. “When you go into the shrink, baby, don’t tell them that. Bring up your mom on your own, let them know you’re working on it, and acknowledge that it’s part of your drive. But fuck, baby, don’t tell them you want to make Homicide to go after that case.”

Her jaw set.

“Does it have to be the department shrink?” he asked, plowing right ahead. “Or can you use someone outside.”

“Yeah, but why the hell would I-”

“You can,” he answered for her. “Cause I got a guy - on my team - he’s good, Beckett. He can make-”

“No.”

He stopped, rubbed his thumb over the place where the skin of his wrist was puckered up around stitches. He wanted to rip them out. He wanted her to talk to Dr King because he was realizing there were places he couldn’t go - she’d never let him - and King could help.

“It’s not cause you need therapy,” he muttered, rubbing at the edge of his wrist where the skin wasn’t puckered. “He’s just - he’d work with you, Beckett. You know? He gives me what I need.”

“What does he give you?” she said, turning her head to frown at him. She had pulled her knee up and rested her chin on top, looking far too young.

“Ways to get around the bureaucracy shit.”

She laughed, lifting her head from her knee. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. He’s good. He’s - you know - we’re co-conspirators.”

Her lips quirked. “What’s his name?”

“King. Dr King. Good guy. Wife, two kids - I think. Stuff he says. He’s not supposed to give out identifiers but he keeps brushing that aside when I bring it up.”

Her face blanked. “But if I - if he helped me out, then wouldn’t that - make it complicated? I don’t think your father would be cool with it.”

“Fuck him,” he muttered. It felt - tense in here, and she was closed down again, her face shut against him, her body shuttered and pulled in. He rotated his arm and looked at the whole of his wrist. “The stitches are starting to hurt.”

“What?”

“Gotta take ‘em out soon, Beckett.”

“What?”

“Yeah, look at ‘em. See? Skin’s healing up over them.” He held out his wrist and she pounced on the change in subject, snagged his arm with her hands.

“Fuck,” she breathed. “I - I don’t know. How can you tell?”

“I can feel it.”

Her brows knit again. “Fine, I’ll - I can call Lanie again. Get her over here.”

“Oh, that the doc who did them?” He saw the twist of her lips and he wondered if something had happened. She hadn’t said much, just had given him a quirky smile and said he’d been called a mobster hitman. “Hey, baby, don’t worry about it. I’ll find someone in the city to pull them out. Don’t burn your bridges. You got precious few of them.”

Her head jerked up, eyes glittering. “It’s not a big deal.”

It felt like a big deal. He could name the people she counted on in one hand, and fucking asshole Royce was one of them. Damn it. No. Not going to do this to her.

“I’ll call her right now,” Beckett said.

He reached out and caught her wrist before she could reach for the phone. “Baby, it’s late. Call her tomorrow. It’ll be okay for now.”

She huffed at him but stopped moving, her eyes regarding him. “This doc of yours? He could coordinate with the precinct shrink, get me reinstated without all the bullshit, right?”

“Exactly.”

Beckett rubbed her kneecap with two fingers, her eyes drifting away, something lost in them.

Fuck, he’d have to ask Dr King to just - just handle her carefully. Something fragile about her, deep down, and he knew he kept trampling over it. He was a damn bully, and he kept stomping on her most vulnerable places.

“When you debrief with him, he doesn’t dig around, right? He just asks questions and nods and you go on to the next mission.”

“Pretty much.” He had no idea. It had never been like that. But he thought Dr King would actually be good for her but not - not like psychoanalysis where she’d get broken open and all her guts on display. She’d be good with King. “He’s a nice guy. Not even pushy.”

She nodded. “Call him.”

\-----

When Beckett finally got back, she had his phone and his money and she looked fucking pissed.

She chucked the phone at his head even as Cujo jumped onto the bed with him. Castle barely caught it before she was opening her jacket and pulling rolled twenties out of her pants - holy fuck, had she shoved them down her panties?

He brought a roll up to his nose and inhaled, staring up at her.

Her skin was bright red, flushed with arousal and furious anger, and she poked his chest. "You asshole. You sent me out there to pick up two thousand dollars."

The money smelled like her. Holy fuck, it smelled like bittersweet Kate Beckett. "Shit," he croaked.

"I'm walking around with two thousand dollars in my pockets-"

"Underwear," he interrupted. "Not pockets. Let's be accurate here."

"Yes, down the front of my pants and all the way between my legs. Is it torture, Castle, can you smell me? I want it to torture you like did me for the last fifteen fucking blocks. Two thousand dollars, and I've got a fucking dog that thinks it's hilarious to sniff men's crotches on the subway, so I walked-"

He got the picture. She had to seriously stop talking so dirty or he was going to maul her like the dog and subway crotches. "Beckett. Put up or shut up."

She glared at him, came in close and kneed him in the ribs. He fell back to the bed easily - she hadn't even hurt him; she'd softened it, pulling back at the last second. She was damn hot and arousing as hell and it was nearly two in the morning and he'd been so-

Her mouth crashed down over his and she straddled his lap, her arm wrapping around him and pinning his left to his chest. 

"Don't move," she husked. "Which toy did you pick, Richard?"

He grinned and nudged his hips into hers. "Why don't you look?"

She turned her head, one of her lithe legs snaking out and sliding under the dog so it knocked him right off the bed. Castle laughed, but Beckett had apparently caught sight of the toy he'd pulled from her drawer.

She glanced back at him with a wicked look. "You did hear me say I was going to use it on you, right?"

He choked. "On - me?"

Her look turned feral and she leaned over to snatch it up, holding the toy against her chest. "Oh, baby, you don't want me to - explore - a little?"

Castle stared at her, heart pounding hard, and suddenly he wanted to know exactly how that felt, her hand on one end of that toy and the other nudging inside him. "Fuck," he rasped.

She chuckled, drawing the head down his chest and teasing. "Me first, I think," she husked. And then she lifted her hips and pushed towards him. "Help me get these jeans off, Rick. Make sure I got all your money."

He swallowed and put his hand over her crotch, leaned in to reverently kiss the exposed skin where her jeans were unzipped. "This is the money," he growled. "Right here."

\-----

Beckett sucked in a hard breath as his fingers slipped into her panties; their bodies came up together on the bed, on their knees, like his hand was the guide urging her up.

“F-fuck,” she stuttered, trying not to close her eyes.

Castle growled and sucked on her neck, his teeth nibbling at her skin. “Yeah, baby. Come on.” And then his fingers found her sex and stroked inside.

Beckett groaned, frantic now to get her jeans off, shoving her waistband down, desperate. Castle wrapped his bad arm around her upper torso, taking her weight, and now she could yank off her jeans, their bodies crushed together.

“Faster, Beckett, fuck.” He was working her hard, her hips kept jumping with every thrust of his fingers. “Fuck. Can’t you-”

“Try-trying,” she gasped. She got a knee out of her pant leg, fucking grateful for these wide-legged jeans, kicked it off. Castle grunted and she realized she’d gotten him in the thigh as he’d moved to brace her. “Sorry.”

“I’m not.” He canted back and she managed to get free of her pants, wishing like hell she’d taken her bra off before they’d started this. With Castle naked already, the damn material was frustratingly in the way.

Castle twisted his hand and she gasped, her heartbeat pounding, but suddenly he was ripping at her underwear, dragging it off her legs.

“Fuck, yeah,” she growled. She hooked her ankle behind his ass and tried to angle her sex to his cock, but Castle gripped her knee and widened her up, kept her away. “What are you-”

“You promised,” he said roughly. 

Suddenly she was being slammed back to the mattress and laid out for him, her breath caught a gasp as he glared at her.

His hand came up and with it was the thick, textured plastic cock she’d been forced to keep in her bedside drawer. “You play with this, Beckett?”

Fuck. “Yeah,” she rasped.

Castle grinned as he hovered over her, slid the rubber cock over her belly and down to rest at her inside thigh. Heavy. “Do you get yourself aroused first, or do you suck on it until it’s nice and wet?”

She shivered, mouth opening to answer but - but it just - it wasn’t there. Awareness had robbed her words, and now he was - he was - sliding the head around her lips, nudging at her sex. She swallowed and clutched at the sheets.

“Oh, baby, am I wrong? I should’ve known. You just shove it-” Castle pushed the cock inside her and she gasped, hips arching. “-right where you want it. Don’t you, love?”

“Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck me,” she moaned, her body aching around the thick penetration.

“That’s right, baby.” His mouth came to her chest, making her shudder, his teeth scraping at her bra and then - fuck - fuck - he twisted the cock deeper, making her hips stutter up. “There it is, love, you like it?”

“Oh, God,” she whispered.

His mouth sucked on her chest, the ragged scrape of his chin dislodging her bra. The cock withdrew and she mewled, shivering, only to yelp when he shoved it deeper inside her. Kate clung to him, clutching his back, needing contact, and then his mouth came over her nipple.

“Oh, fuck-”

He sucked hard and she bucked, causing the cock to bottom out inside her with a teeth-jarring jolt.

Castle nudged her womb with it, suckling at her breast, and then he began to fuck her with it, in and out, a steady, deep stroke that made her head go back, her neck straining, eyes slamming shut.

“Rick, please, oh God, oh God-”

His tongue flicked over her nipple and his wrist twisted the cock so deep that his thumb caught her clit. She shouted, orgasming hot and vicious around the tightly-driven cock, clawing at his back as she came, but every arch, every thrust, every contraction so sweet, so ragged, so mind-blowing.

And then Castle ripped the fake one out and shoved his own inside her, thrusting fiercely, and the difference - the width of him, the fucking ferocious length, the pulse of his need for her transmitted like electric current, and Kate trembled through the last of one orgasm only to smash into another.

Castle ripped his kiss away from her breast and landed on her mouth, sucking on her tongue and groaning her name, hips pumping. She clutched at him, trembling around the power of his cock inside her, burnt up by the heat of them, the sweat slicking and rubbing, the friction of his body sliding, his skin catching hers on fire.

“Kate.” His body locked up, mouth open against her lips, and then the warm rope of his come was filling her, like fingers stroking inside her, petting, the feel of him so intense she could cry.

Castle collapsed on top of her with a groan even as she trembled, and she managed to get a hand out and captured his injured wrist, draw it slowly, gently towards her lips. 

Her kiss dusted the heel of his hand, the tender flesh of his inside wrist, and she held him close, trying to remember how to breathe.

\-----

“Well, fuck.” His words seemed to burst out of him.

Beckett laughed and tried to make her limbs function, her body loose and warm and filled with - with - with bliss.

Damn, it felt good. How utterly disgusting to feel so good.

His fingers flexed along her shoulder where she’d cradled his hand, and his head turned on the pillow to look at her. He had shifted to his side, his stomach against her hip and his good arm under her neck, and she was rather trapped.

She didn’t mind so much. Kept her from getting cold.

His knee shifted and knocked into her thigh and then his injured arm adjusted so that it was braced over her sternum, fingers smoothing along her collarbone and neck. She had bruises, she was sure, but she didn’t care. Felt really good at the time, the way he held her down and forced the pleasure on her-

“Mmm, stop grinning like that,” he husked. “You’re too sexy to resist.”

She laughed again and lifted her hand from where she’d been cradling his wrist, brushed her fingers along his temple to his hair. He was warm but not as sweat-damp as she was, and his lips caught her inside arm and kissed.

But he looked tired. And she kept making herself promises not to jump him, and yet she did anyway. Walking the dog back the whole way with two thousand dollars in twenties rolled up in her panties and making her wet, and could she really help it?

He was a damn attractive man.

“Resist a little while longer,” she told him, stroking her fingers through his hair, hand cramped in the awkward position. She turned her chin to him and kissed the ridge of his eyebrow. “Gonna sleep, baby. It’s late.”

“Slept all day,” he muttered. But he sighed at the end and she saw his eyelids drooping at her touch.

Beckett petted his hair, trailed her fingers along that solid bone structure, proud nose and wide jaw and defined chin. The deep cleft of his eyes set between his nose and under his eyebrows, the round almost apple of his cheeks, and the the flesh of his lips where his kiss found her touch.

“You sleep too,” he mumbled. “Get you again later with that thing. So much fun.”

She smiled, feeling it stretch her face and touch her pillow as she watched him. 

She had a thousand things to do. The money was still in rolled bills on the floor, the phone had gotten lost at the foot of the bed under covers somewhere, and she had gained two shadows on her way home who were no doubt outside right now. On top of that, she had a meeting with her rep, plus she had to contact this King guy of Castle’s, fix an immediate appointment to get herself cleared for duty.

Life was fucking complicated and messy and she was suspended for the rest of the week, and she absolutely hated it like that, but if Castle could sleep the rest of the night, she had to admit the day looked brighter.

Five days with him in her-

Well, however long he could stay.

Kate curled her fingers up, hovering over his still-with-sleep face, watched for his breathing until she was reassured.

When he felt better, he probably shouldn’t be fucking around. He probably should be clearing up whatever shit had gone down with his father.

Kate pulled her arm back into her chest only to be confronted by his stitched-up wrist lying between her breasts. She hesitated, fingers not knowing where to touch, and then she carefully cradled his wrist between her hands, turning her back to him to get some sleep.

Even then, Castle came with her, his chest to her spine, his arm snug around her waist, and his legs tangled irrevocably with hers.

She kissed the tip of his fingers and laced hers between them, taking care to keep his arm sheltered by her body.

\-----

He could get used to this.

Castle pressed his mouth to the arch of her shoulder, brushing aside her hair with his nose, the warm skin meeting his lips. Her body fit in front of him so perfectly, every long limb lined up, her ass touching the tops of his thighs where he'd drawn up behind her. He'd woken a few minutes ago to find her still asleep, another dawn apologetic behind the sheet she'd thrown over the window.

There were things that ought to be done, steps he should take and calls he should make, but lying in bed with her and tracing his mouth over the ridges of bones that prodded up under her skin, the landscape of her body mapped out, was too enticing. Too good. She'd been more natural these last few days, despite her grief and the trouble he'd brought in with him. Natural and willing, like he normally only saw in bed, when he held her down and made her.

He kissed her shoulder and the hill of her shoulder blade, tasted the edge of warm sleep on her skin. Her body in his arms and sheltered by his own, her hair spilling at her neck and away from her ear so he could press his mouth there, touch that softest place where her jaw came up and dipped behind her ear and the skin was just so lovely. Flowers and a day of sunshine, and he was so desperately in love with her.

Which meant he had to get out of this bed and deal with John Black, put him off her scent, because she was his, she was his to scent, not something for his father to play around with. Her life wasn't a game.

He had to get out of bed, but he wanted to wake with her. Together. He wanted to have her come aware in his arms and turn and look at him, maybe a little raised eyebrow, maybe a sleep-smudged smirk that only managed a smile, and he would touch his mouth to her impish mouth and kiss her. He would lay half on top of her and let her wake up to him, awaken, delicious and warm and lazy, the rocking motion slowed down, the ease of their kiss transmuted to their chests and bellies and thighs.

He wanted it. He didn't even need to take a more urgent approach, didn't even need to find his way inside her, not when they could skim skins and bodies brush close and have her mouth open under his. She filled his arms, she filled him, and he hadn't realized he could have so very many holes, so many places needing. 

He returned to her every time, ship to safe harbor, storms or no, and how good it felt, how right it felt when he slid inside her was only part of it. He'd come to her to die, to be rescued, to bleed, to heal. He had come to her and she had received him and even if she kicked him out for a thousand years, he wouldn't forget, he wouldn't forget this.

Having a place. Being home.

Kate.

\-----

Beckett pushed her thumb into her mouth and sucked the butter from her skin, smiling around her teeth as Castle laughed and leaned in, kissing her hard and fast on the cheek. He moved on, hand brushing the tops of her shoulders as he headed for the kitchen. She sank back in her chair and chewed on her toast, trying not to get crumbs on her silk shell - or the expensive pants.

"He said nine was good for him," Castle told her over his shoulder. He was putting a few slices of bread into the toaster and she had a sudden flash of wishing she'd thought to do it herself. Bread and maybe eggs too. She had eggs somewhere. He'd made breakfast for her time and again when he'd been here the night, usually because she was in a rush to get out the door and not be late - he always liked to make her late, and fuck, she did too really. 

"Do you want scrambled eggs?" she said, rising from the table.

"I'll make some if you want-"

"No, I thought - if you wanted some," she finished lamely. Her cheeks were pink. Damn it. "Never mind. Toast is all I want. And coffee. I need my coffee, Richard."

He chuckled, throwing her a bedeviling look. He'd declared this morning that he was in charge of her coffee - he had a new thing he wanted to do, something he'd picked up wherever the hell he'd been civilized enough for coffee. But that meant she still hadn't had any. No wonder she was stumbling over her words and suggesting scrambled eggs.

She had a therapist's appointment in forty-five minutes. He'd better hurry.

"Let me get the bread toasting, hang on," he laughed, shooting her a look across the kitchen island. Her own toast was gone, scarfed down fast. She couldn't eat anything heavy before a therapist's session - holy fuck, no - but she'd been a lot more hungry than she'd realized. 

"Did King say anything about - like - what to expect?" she asked, settling down at the bar stool before the counter. She put her elbows on the wooden top and hunched her shoulders. "Did he say he could clear me?"

"He said he had to do prelim eval - it's mandatory - and that he actually does cops."

"He does cops."

Castle flashed her a hot look for her amusement and she bit her lip, reminding herself she was already dressed nice and ready to go. She didn't need to be sitting on some old guy's couch, hot and bothered and wet, not when the guy actually knew Castle. Fuck that would be so telling on her face.

"He's consulted with the local bureau as well. I hadn't realized he had such a storied career," Castle chuckled. "Can't remember if I said this, but he already knows about - uh, you."

"Well, you called-"

"I mean. He knows some of your - story." He winced, as if calling it her 'story' somehow pained him.

"He knows about my mom, you mean."

Castle was setting up her coffee maker, but he paused and looked at her for a long moment. "Yes. And - you and me. What I - what I'm doing here."

What are you doing here? she almost blurted out. What are you doing to me? Might have been a better question. But she shelved those and shook her head. "Good actually. Makes it easier. Don't have to figure out how to lie to him."

"Aw, Beckett, I'm touched. You lie about me to people?"

She snorted, but well, she did. She was lying to her father about him, she was lying to Lanie about him, she was lying even to the guys at the 12th who had asked her out or for a quick fuck and she'd said no. Lying.

"Nobody else I'm lying for," she said finally. She meant it to be funny, it had sounded funny in her head, but it made Castle push off against the counter and come around the kitchen island, wrap his arms around her and kiss her breathless.

Tongue, seduction, skill - but a whole lot of crazy intense desperation in it too.

She had to clutch his shirt to keep from tilting backwards off the stool, and he kept kissing her, devouring her, and finally, finally, oh fuck, she wrapped her legs around his waist and went for it.

"Promise I won't ruin your beautiful clothes," he husked in her ear, and then his hand was slipping inside her pants.

\-----


	11. Chapter 11

She was so fucking wet. Holy shit. So wet and she kept making these noises right in his ear as he touched her. So damn hot.

“Fuck, Beckett,” he rasped, closing his mouth over what he could reach. Her cheekbone, and he sucked a little, and she mewled.

Damn, her black eye. 

“No, don’t stop, don’t stop,” she begged.

He kept her close, his hand down her pants, cramped and so tight, she was so damn wet and he was afraid it was seeping through her panties and around his fingers and staining her beautiful grey dress pants. 

“Don’t stop, don’t-”

He rubbed hard at her clit, digging for it, needing it as much as she needed it. Her hands were in tight fists at his back, holding on to him, and her hips kept making this dirty little swivel in the air, and he fucking adored that sound.

That sound. Holy hell, if he could make her sound like that-

“Please,” she whimpered.

He rubbed her off in seconds, and she was creaming his hand with her orgasm, shaking and clinging to him for support as he gripped her around the waist.

He slid his hand back up through her pubic hair, dragging wet trails of her arousal up over her belly. She shuddered and pressed her cheek to his.

“Shit,” she gasped.

“Good one?”

“Shit, I...”

“Yeah,” he hummed, so pleased. She shifted against him, spread her knees over his thigh, rocking a little sloppily, still coming down from it. Her chin dropping to the top of his shoulder and her hair tickled his lips. 

Castle lightly kissed her neck, trying to be nonchalant about it, but he felt like his blood had dissolved inside him, just a warm, liquid mess, unable to do anything about just how much this affected him.

Her nuzzling into his jaw, her body responding to him like love.

She groaned. “I need to leave soon.” But she didn’t move from his arms, didn’t move from her spot at his thigh, still grinding a little, though without much intent, boneless and sated.

He cupped the back of her head, rubbing his thumb over the hinge of her jaw in front of her ear. “What can I do to help?” he murmured. He wanted to do - so much - anything; he would do anything for her. Anything to show her just how much he loved her.

She hummed and sighed. “My coffee. I need caffeine.”

If that was how he could love her, then that’s how he’d do it. Coffee in the mornings. He’d become a fucking gourmand.

“Let me finish your cup, sweetheart. Coffee I can do.”

\-----

She had a travel mug of absolute heaven in one hand and the subway handrail in the other, both things pressed close to her chest as the train swerved around a corner too fast. Sometimes during rush hour, she expected to jump the tracks. They were that fast and loose with the ‘driving’ aspect.

It really should all be done by computers, shouldn’t it?

Beckett took a cautious sip and nearly groaned, closing her eyes to let the flavor transport her. He hadn’t even bought different coffee, he had just adjusted how much and how long it percolated (she didn’t even know you could do that on her machine), and then he had added other stuff.

Even with her eyes closed and her body leaning against the pole, she was still aware. The car was crowded and she was too near the doors to not be, but she had a long ride ahead of her to get to the therapist’s home.

Home visit. Shit, Castle had called in special favors. She appreciated it; she did, and it had taken too long this morning to ditch the two assholes at the end of her block. She wasn’t really sure she had, which scared her in ways she didn’t want to think about, but they were CIA and she had to trust the system.

She didn’t, fuck definitely didn’t. She was in the system for that very reason. Because her mother had been brutally murdered in their home and nothing had been done about, a cursory investigation and a label slapped on it and now it was cold.

Beckett swigged the coffee and the taste unfolded in her mouth like blood blooming from a punch, sharp and distinct and just enough to wake her up. Get her in the game.

She couldn’t lead them to Castle’s own therapist. For one, Black would know she’d been given that connection, even more classified information, and another, she really didn’t like the idea of Black knowing who her therapist was.

She didn’t trust. 

So Beckett jumped off at the next stop and switched trains, getting on a car just as the doors were beginning to close. She still had her coffee, thank goodness, and she had that spark of adrenaline making her heart beat hard.

And she might be turned on. Probably. Yeah. Easy to do when an elevated heart rate and a little spice of danger made her think of him and his body looming over her and the feel of his fingers around her wrist and at her hip and inside-

Fuck. Concentrate.

For the therapist’s own sake, she had to be better than this. She had to be more than just good or clever. Castle had come to her when he needed help, and he had offered up King for her help in exchange. She couldn’t bring this shit to the therapist’s door. What protection from Black could the man possibly have?

But Castle trusted him. And okay, yes, Castle seemed to trust rather fucking easily, but he was a damn good spy and she’d seen him do things... she knew of his stories too, and how closed down he was out there, so if he trusted this man, she could too.

She didn’t trust, but Castle did, and that was good enough for now.

At Grand Central, Beckett got off again and made the rounds of every platform, took a few wrong turns on purpose, found her way to the train.

She had a date with a man in Jersey.

\-----

“Detective Beckett, please come in.”

She didn’t hesitate, wanted nothing to give a bad impression. Beckett stepped inside the man’s home, but she saw it was a kind of attached garage outfitted as an office. The space was separated from his home by a heavy, steel-reinforced door - if she wasn’t mistaken - and there was only one window set into the side wall. It was bulletproof - of that she had no doubt; the pane rippled as she looked out.

“Heavily fortified,” he told her. King was giving her an easy smile. She had never seen an adult male smile so naturally.

Well, sometimes Castle did. Sometimes. She’d seen him smile at her like that.

“I noticed,” she replied, glancing a little more subtly around the space.

“My family lives here,” he told her. “And I don’t often bring a patient here, but you’re quite the exception.”

She stood stiffly in the middle of his office. Thick carpet, a chair, a desk. A nicer grouping of two chairs was before the window and it was here that he led her. She let herself be led, and took the chair opposite his only after he had sat down.

“Detective, I’m Dr King, as you know, and a mutual friend has told me you need to be cleared for active duty.”

“I’m still active, just on suspension,” she clarified. “I have to pass a mandatory psych eval.”

“I understand,” he replied. His smile hadn’t wavered or even dimmed, though it had grown easier, more proportional to his face. He smiled like it was a part of breathing and she realized it had unconsciously worked on her - she was easing back into the chair without her will.

She sat up straighter. “I just need you to ask me the questions, fill out this form, sign it-”

“I have the form here.” He pulled a single slip of paper from the table below the window. She saw the sunlight behind it, making it glow. “I can do that for you. Are you ready to start?”

She had been so ready to fight him for it that she didn’t know what to say. She opened her mouth and then closed it, nodded.

He was just - going to go for it? No sneaky questions, no probing into how she’d come to be in his office, no asking her why not the department shrink?

“All right, Detective-”

“Kate,” she blurted out. Fuck.

“Kate,” he smiled. It wasn’t even a radiant thing, it wasn’t like it made him attractive. He was nice enough, though a little rounded at the edges, boring even, and that never appealed to her. But he just - she wasn’t sure when she’d last seen a man smile.

“Yes, sir, just... Kate.”

“Oh, the sir isn’t necessary. You can call me ‘Doc’ - as Rick does. Or King. I’d offer my first name, but it’s Joe, and it’s a little embarrassing. My mother had no idea I’d have to be a professional with a name like that.”

“Joe King?” she said, mildly horrified, too amused for an official meeting like this. “Not Joseph, maybe?”

“Just Joe,” he sighed, shaking his head. “Mothers. What can you do?”

“Mine called me Katherine,” she said. Her shoulders went down, but her heart was beating hard. “No one calls me that now.”

“Now that she’s dead,” King said, nodding. “My mother died a few years ago. I guess if I stopped using Joe altogether, no one would know, would they?”

“No one would know,” she echoed, horrified by the knot in her throat. “Castle told you.”

“He did.”

“Did he say how?”

“How she died?” King said quietly. “He did. He looked very bleak as he said it, but he gave me only the bare bones. He said your father was still living.”

Her father. She swallowed. “Castle told you about my father?”

“Is there something else to tell?”

Fuck. Castle hadn’t told. “He’s a drunk.”

“Oh, no. He didn’t mention that, specifically. He said your father found your mother that night.”

“He did.” 

“You suppose that lets him off the hook?”

“No.”

“Ah,” King nodded. “Me either.” He placed his palm over the paper. “But we’re completely off topic.”

She let out a sharp breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“Back to clearing you. Call me Doc if you like, or King, but please not Joe?” He gave her a smile, like they hadn’t just said her father was an alcoholic, like he hadn’t just walked through the minefield of her mother’s death and had that bomb go off in both of their faces.

Had it, though?

Didn’t feel like the bomb had gone off.

“Not Joe,” she said finally. “Doc. I can do that.”

“Thank you, Kate. I appreciate that. Now, first question. What’s the date?”

“The date?” She was so bewildered that it actually took her a moment. “It’s March 3rd. I - why?”

“Oriented to your surroundings - check. Ready for the next question? It’s a doozy?”

It was?

“Do you use drugs or alcohol to excess?” 

He was joking? Joe King. Oh, God. She was going to crack up in therapy. “Of course not. No.” 

“Of course not,” he echoed.

She tensed. Her father wasn’t-

But King didn’t go there. “Next question. What incited the incident for which you were written up?”

“Macho bullshit,” she clipped.

King smiled. “Perhaps you can be a little more specific. It’s been my experience that law enforcement and - shall we say, certain federal agencies? - are quite stuffed with macho bullshit.”

She laughed. It surprised the hell out of her. But King looked pretty surprised himself.

Beckett scraped her hand through her hair and took a breath. “Um. Macho bullshit this time was my CO pulling me off my usual cases to investigate an illegal plane, using my leads to make himself a name, and not giving me the credit. As well as saying to my face that I should go back to the street corner where I do the most good.”

She paused a beat, but nothing happened. No explosion there either.

“That was the incident? I have the report faxed to me by your Captain which says you cursed out your CO. I thought that was the incident.”

She shut her mouth, glaring at King. Was he fucking around?

"It really is the next question," he told her, lifting up the paper. "Oriented to your surroundings - you got that just fine. Not addicted to controlling substances - a given. The last one before I clear you is simply - takes responsibility for her actions."

Beckett gritted her teeth. "Fine. I cursed out my CO. Are we done?"

"Very good, Kate. I have led you to the answers of every single question. Sounds like I'm definitely cleared for duty. What about you?"

"Is that a trick question?" she hissed.

"It wasn't. But asking if it's a trick makes me think that you don't think it should be that easy." He sat back, the paper on his lap, his palms carefully on his knees. "If it's supposed to be harder to get you back at work, why is that you think?" 

Well, fuck. He'd been playing her from the beginning, arranging this interview to go exactly as he liked, and here they were, exactly at the heart of the matter she hadn't wanted to even touch.

Was she really - in the darkest places - was she really equipped to do this job? Could she keep it up or was she going to shatter?

"Kate? If that's too knotted a question to unravel, how about we start simple?"

"Oh-kay."

"What do you enjoy about the job?"

She let out a breath, sinking back into the seat again. She could do that. That was easy. She-

King was waiting. So patiently. But his hand was no longer poised to check off those three steps and clear her for duty. She had to answer.

"I enjoy.." She tried to summon it again, why? Why did she stay? "I enjoy closing a case - knowing who did it and why and that I've made it if not unlikely for them do it again, at least a lot damn harder for the next time. I threw up a roadblock. I haven't made it easy for them to break the law."

He smiled again, that easy smile that allowed her to take another breath. He settled back in his chair and put an ankle on one knee. "You enjoy making their lives difficult. The criminals. You enjoy being a stumbling block to others. An obstacle."

She narrowed her eyes. "That makes me sound argumentative and combatant."

"It does, doesn't it?" he laughed. He was laughing. But it didn't seem to be at her. He waved a hand towards his desk and she knew then that her file was right there; he'd already gotten it from her Captain. "Do you know those are the exact two words your Captain used when he wrote you up?"

She blew out a breath, not sure if she was laughing or not. "Really."

"Either you've heard it before, Kate, or you're much more self-aware than the agents I see in here."

She sighed. "I've - heard it before."

"I'm pleased that you enjoy it," he said back. "Otherwise I'd have asked you why you hadn't ceased that behavior. But now we know - you enjoy not letting other people get away with their bullshit. Noted. I will do my best not to bullshit you."

Her shoulders slumped. "That sounded like you plan on me being here again."

"Ah, there is the heart of things. Do you not want to be here again?"

"No." But then she heard the answer and the question together, and she couldn't understand what she'd exactly said to him. No, I don't want to be here again, No, I don't not want to be here.

"I guess that's our answer," he said. He didn't give any indication of which way he was taking it either. She was clueless, going in blind, and she found herself wanting to reassure him.

Damn. 

"You're good at this," she rasped, blinking at him. Bewildered respect was the raw red skin under the peeling wariness.

He smiled. "I am rather good at this."

She huffed and glanced towards the window, slowly crossed one leg over the other. Her grey pants were lightweight, expensive, and Castle had appreciated the hell out of them. Castle had sent her here to this man, knowing how good he was at this - or maybe not consciously knowing, but feeling the results.

"Debrief team, my ass," she muttered.

"Well. I have sought Richard out alone."

"Rick," she said, correcting automatically. Shit. Again. He'd put himself into a position as an equal, and then humbled himself to her so that she felt the need to instruct as someone with a different experience might. Damn it. He was very good.

"Rick, then. I should have asked him his preference. I hadn't realized he went by Rick."

He didn't. Kate called him that; it was - her thing. "I call him Richard when he's being an asshole."

King chuckled. "Then perhaps he's never called Rick?"

She laughed back, shaking her head. She'd just given over entirely too much information in an attempt to defend the weak point where he'd already scored a hit. He was a natural at interrogation. He must have so much...

"How about this?" she said suddenly, sitting forward. "You're a skilled interrogator and I'm a newbie police detective looking to make it into Homicide. I need - guidance. I need someone to say, here's how I do it, here's how I play them. You're very good. But it doesn't look so hot on my record if it shows up that I'm seeing a shrink on the regular."

"Ah, yes, well, it shouldn't actually appear on your record. Not when you're with me. Didn't Rick tell you that?"

She blinked. "It won't?"

"No. But I believe you were about to propose a very interesting... trade? My instruction for your being cleared for active duty?"

Kate grinned back at him. "Yes. Exactly."

"It seems to me I'm doing all the work here."

Beckett pushed back against the chair, maintained eye contact. "Not if - not if what you're doing is also therapy. I've already picked up something I had never heard taught before."

"Oh?"

"Shifting defenses. You got me to tell you more about Castle than I should have, trying to cover myself after you scored too close to home. I exposed something else entirely."

He smiled now, and some of the easy and guileless nature was gone. There was a thinking man behind that smile, a predatory man dressed as a sheep. That too was something to note.

"And then you told me a third thing, right there," he said softly. "Didn't you, Kate?"

A third thing? What had she-

"Oh, fucking hell." She had told him that Castle was someone she shouldn't be talking about with him.

King laughed, quite full and rich, and now his eyes dazzled and warmed, no longer blank walls upon which she saw only herself. "I like you a lot, Kate. I see why Rick wanted us to meet. Shall we then?"

"Shall we?"

"Take up your exchange. Therapy for interrogation tactics. They are remarkably similar. I'll go ahead and sign your form, Kate, and fax it to your Captain. He'll see you've dotted your i's and crossed your t's."

She nodded sharply in agreement but she had sinking feel he had somehow arranged all this too.

\-----

“One last thing.”

Beckett froze. She had been so close. So close to escape. There’d been a vague background conversation in which Dr King had shared information about his own childhood and she’d reciprocated - though that kind of interrogation technique wasn’t new to her, she had played along to see where it would lead.

She had picked up a few things, and then somehow they’d segued into Castle again, but she’d quickly reined that in. Back to her childhood, back to her precinct woes, away from the - murky stuff.

Only now she was standing at the door with her hand nearly to the knob and King was saying one more question.

“Yeah, Doc?” she said finally, turning to him.

King put his hands in his pockets, regarded her a moment. She realized with a sting of awareness that he was debating whether or not to keep going, whether one more word would set her off.

She was that much of a bitch. Damn. Talk about a time bomb. She braced herself for the big one.

But when his question finally came, it wasn’t what she’d thought. “Who did that to your face?”

Kate blinked, lifted her hand to her cheek in surprise. “Castle,” she answered, too stunned to prevaricate. 

King frowned and his eyebrows knit. Fucking hell, she hadn’t meant - she’d forgotten about the black eye after having been so conscious of it the whole way here. She hadn’t meant to say that. She tried to think of a way to explain, to not - make it worse - the whole thing would sound like an excuse and fuck, fuck it all, this was exactly what she’d been trying to avoid.

“Is Rick all right?”

Beckett lifted her eyes to him. The doc had crossed his arms over his chest now, leaning in to her with a deep crease in his forehead. 

King was worried about Castle, not her; he knew better. Here was someone who knew better. “He is now,” she husked. “He - nearly had his hand cut off. It was bad.”

The therapist let out a long breath. “You tell him - he needs to get over here to see me. First thing.” King cut her an assessing look, and it was so sharp, so piercing, that she felt like he had flayed her where she stood. “Please tell him not to go to his father. Do you understand me, Kate?”

She wanted to be surprised; for Castle’s sake, oh, she had wanted to be surprised.

But she wasn’t. “I understand. He’s - hiding out at the moment.”

King gave her quirk of his mouth and the taskmaster was gone, replaced by the concerned mentor just like that. He was very good; she couldn’t forget that. She absolutely could not drop her guard with him about Castle.

“Kate, he didn’t mean to do you harm.” King lifted his hand and set in on her shoulder in a squeeze. “And can I... stick my nose into it just a little?”

She regarded him warily. “I guess so. Seems like you already have.”

He smiled at her. It still took her off guard. His hand dropped. “I know Rick is a rather blank slate at times, that he has this air of nothing ever reaching him, nothing ever getting past his professionalism, but-”

He what? No. That was not at all Rick Castle.

“But when he feels responsible, Kate... he feels very responsible. I know that sounds ridiculous. Trust me when I say he might play it off, but he’s not happy about this.”

Suddenly King’s thumb came to her cheek as if measuring the scale of the bruise. She held very still, felt like a rabbit caught out.

“We both know a bruise is nothing,” he said quietly. “For both your sakes, watch out for John Black.”

And then King reached past her and pushed open the door to his converted office, letting her out into the cool morning light.

\-----


	12. Chapter 12

When Beckett finally got back to her own neighborhood, it was closing in on lunch. Starving, ravenous in a way that was deep and demanding. She had to stop at a food truck and order fish tacos, scarfing them right there on the curb, licking her fingers as the juice from the tomatoes ran down her hand. 

Fresh guacamole too, and the sharp bite of salt. She threw away the wrappers in the big can in front of her, wiped her mouth with the lone napkin before chucking it as well.

Her stop to wolf down lunch had made the roaches come out of the woodwork. The people kind of roach, who had evidently picked her up at Grand Central when she’d switched from the train to her own line. So eager to prove they had her, the two were much more conspicuous. 

Maybe they were supposed to be. 

Still, she wouldn’t tip her hand. She ignored them, thinking about Castle stuck in her apartment. Thinking about the two of them stuck there for the next few days, the weekend. Or however long. 

Trying not to think about King and how his smile came so easily, about how concerned he was for Castle, how he’d known what was important and what wasn’t. Castle hit you? Is he okay?

She thought she’d been tricked somehow. She didn’t like it. But she had to be there, she had to be cleared, so what other choice did she have? 

Beckett went grocery shopping just to make her day look normal and also because she seriously had no food. Just one item on a really long list of things wrong with this week, but at least she could take care of that.

And it wasn’t like she could bring home fast food for two, or even order in for two, so she was stuck with real ingredients and guessing at what they could cobble together. Some chicken, a few sauces in jars, pasta, even vegetables because she knew how to saute those at least.

She felt inadequate to this, and she fucking knew it, and it was the damn therapy session which hadn’t even been a session, just some questions and some barbed phrases and some honest sympathy and concern the likes of which she hadn’t seen in years. 

Holy fuck, she was being done in by kindness. How fucking pathetic. 

Beckett stomped up her stairs, not happy, so very not happy with all of this, groceries burdening her like she was a pack mule. She didn’t want this life, this wasn’t her; she wanted to be back at her hard-won desk in the 12th precinct or, fuck it all, even on the damn street corner skirting the line of entrapment.

When she got the door unlocked, Castle was on her computer, half-rising to come help. He took the bags from her hands and leaned in; she flinched, expecting what, she didn’t know. But he didn’t kiss her. He sniffed her hair and neck, hummed something that had her body blooming in heat.

“Smell like honey,” he husked.

Her fingers were still tangled in the straps of the bags; she found it impossible to get free. “Honey,” she tried. “You’re smelling things. Hallucinating with your nose.”

He chuckled and the sound was like a caress straight down her spine.

“Fuck,” she whispered. “You gotta stop that.”

“Laughing at your jokes?”

She narrowed her eyes at him and pushed him back, nudges of hips and hands still trapped within his own. She got him to the kitchen and he set her bags on the counter, framed her hips even as he drove her against the fridge.

“Don’t move,” he rasped.

She bucked her hips in retaliation, but he was devouring her neck, pinning her against the cold stainless steel of her refrigerator. She moaned when his tongue touched her skin, gripped fistfuls of his shirt as he pushed his knee between her thighs.

She eagerly rode his leg, grinding as he graveled encouragement, tongue and lips teasing, his fingers skimming under her shirt and across her ribs, her stomach, the top of her hipbones. It was coming fast, it was building tightly, she couldn’t stop it.

“Come on, love,” he husked. “Missed you all morning. Fall apart for me.”

She cried out as she came, dirty and tight against his thigh, trapped between his body and the fridge, rattled and undone.

Castle cupped her face and kissed her, mouth slow, knowing. She opened for that too, unable to help herself, her body warm and dazed.

When he lifted from her, his hands traveled roughly, touching everything, before moving to her thighs and easing her down to stand on her own.

“How was therapy?” Already he had turned to the bags on the counter, was starting to unload. “You like King?”

Just like that, switched back to business. But her body still remembered, and the tension she’d carried all morning was gone.

\-----

She was all ruffled feathers and prickly spines and quivering scales this afternoon, but Castle had worked a little spell against the fridge and she'd settled into huffing and frowning at him. His baby dragon Beckett. Little fire-breather, hoarding her gold.

Fuck, it got kinky and dirty the more he followed that metaphor down its dark hole. Nice. When she wasn't ready to tear his head off, he'd have to share that one. As it was, he was narrowly escaping her talons.

Later, baby dragon. Later, he promised.

"I can do chicken and veggies," he said, offering again. "It won't be a strain."

"You're supposed to be taking it easy," she muttered. "And those stitches look infected, Castle."

"They're not. They're irritated," he said. "They need to come out."

"That's not possible," she hissed. Her back was to him as she shoved laundry into the hamper. Bedsheets. She was doing laundry and she was pissed at the domesticity of the whole scene. He could fuck it out of her, and that would be fun for both of them, but the stitches really ought to come out first.

"Beckett, you got any hydrogen peroxide? Or rubbing alcohol, iodine, something?"

"Iodine," she said warily, turning to look at him. "Why?"

He moved to get ahead of her, walking down the hall as he finally said it. "I'm taking these out."

"No!" she shouted. He felt her tackle him and took her easily, flipping her around to pin her against the wall. "Damn it, Richard."

"They need to come out, Beckett. Trust me - I know my body. It's what I rely on to get me out alive. You might not understand your own - fucking hell, I know your body better than you do - but I know mine. And these need out."

She was furious, oh, she was livid. And damn, it was sexy as hell. 

Because she was angry for him as well as at him. Scared for him and what happened to him because she cared, and she found herself caring, and it scared the shit out of her.

She hadn't said more than two words about King. He'll do.

"I saw down to your bone, Castle. That's not-"

"It's healed up good. You did right, Beckett, but now they've got to come out. Besides, baby, I'm tired of touching you with only one hand." And to prove it, he skimmed his injured one down over her pants and pressed his knuckles into her, making her hips bump and her mouth drop open.

She groaned.

"Yeah, love," he whispered, crowding close. "You miss it too. Don't you, sweetheart? Don't you want me?"

"Fuck," she moaned.

"Don't you want to know how good you did? Feel just how strong it healed, how you saved me for just such a time as this?"

"Fuck, you're playing dirty."

"Only way to play. Only woman I'd play with," he couldn't help but add. He laid an open-mouthed kiss to her jaw, sank his teeth until he could feel her bone under her skin. She shivered and he pressed his fingers a little higher, little tighter.

"You're a damn bully," she whined. Whined. He was doing it right. "But you - you can't do that alone. You'll never get those stitches out one-handed."

"I need a you," he murmured, smiling into her neck. "I need a you, a help-" He didn't finish it, the rest of that line: a wife.

It was a poem in one of her books on the bottom shelf. Books she'd kept from her first semester at Stanford, judging by the university bookstore sticker on their spines. He'd read them all, but the vitriol and anger, the bitterness in that poem had stayed with him, not least because she'd underlined the title in red: Love Song: I and Thou.

Nothing's plumb, level, or square... Oh I spat rage’s nails into the frame-up of my work: it held.

What they were building here might be built with a lot of rage, a lot of bitterness and frustration and even willful self-deceit. But holy fuck, it still held. It held and it held them together and it was a love song all its own.

And he knew she recognized the poem; he knew it. 

"You gonna help me, Beckett? You going to help me take the stitches out so my wrist will heal cleanly?"

She let out a dark noise, her body still stiff and hot between him and the wall. He pressed his thumb up where he knew-

She darted forward and kissed him, teeth and bite, furious, and he could feel the crack in his lips, the peel of skin and the salt of blood.

"Damn arrogant bully," she spat out. "I'll help. Let me get the fucking scissors."

\-----

She found her cuticle scissors - stupid manicure gift set from Lanie for her birthday last year: if you won't go out and have them done, at least make them look better. She had never used it; she'd gone with Lanie twice to her usual appointment and there'd been that budding camaraderie instead.

Now she used tweezers and the focused beam of light from a desktop lamp she'd plugged into the bathroom outlet. Castle was sitting on the lid of the toilet seat and she worked on his wrist, kneeling at his feet, her breasts pressed against his knees for stability. She lifted the knot away from his irritated skin and she had to admit it looked clean, healed.

Which shouldn't be fucking possible. Not in two days. Not when she'd seen his actual bone. 

She'd been pissed and muttering at him for the last fifteen minutes, and at one point he had petted the top of her head like - like - she didn't know what, but it only pissed her off even more.

But he was right, the stitches were coming out. It was so weird. They pulled his skin a little and the angry red where the stitch knotted up just... fell apart. She snipped with the cuticle scissors and threads tugged free.

Her stomach was doing this funny thing where it felt like she had threads there too, being tugged. 

"That's good, baby." His fingers were inert on his lap, but he was leaned back against the toilet, relaxed, smiling at her. He looked like - weird that this came to mind now - but he looked like he did right after he had come particularly hard, just sapped completely, right out. He always tried snuggling with her after that, and if she was limp enough, sated enough, she could never do much to stop him rolling right over her and staying there.

"Almost done," she said finally, fixing her eyes to his wrist instead of the relief on his face. Relief, that's what it was. Like maybe he'd thought it would never happen but it had and now he was just so... grateful.

That's how he looked at her when he let himself.

She snipped the next to last knot, surprised by the idea of it. Of him - her fucking badass CIA spy who was just so relieved to be able to... what? Come inside her? Fall asleep in her bed? Relieved she was there and regular and dependably alone to fuck again? She didn't know, but the string connecting it to her own guts was tugging, mild pulls of reminder.

Reminding her that she was always relieved too. Relieved to be fucked hard, relieved it was him, relieved to not have to think about it. Relieved when he rolled over and laid on top of her and seemed unwilling to move again for at least another six hours.

Relieved when he took her again the moment he could, relieved when he scraped his cheek along her belly and went down, relieved when he wanted her and wanted her and couldn't seem to help wanting her all over again.

\-----

“Kate.”

She ignored the flagrant pouting in his voice and put the cuticle scissors in the medicine cabinet. When she closed the mirrored door, she saw Castle’s reflection behind her, slipping up to slide his arms around her waist.

“Looks good,” he murmured. “Don’t you think?”

She swallowed and glanced down at his hand, the pucker of irritated skin and angry flesh. Where she had been forced to yank a little to get the threads out, the wound had weeped. It didn’t feel good, seeing it, and it hadn’t felt good doing it, and a hundred crime scenes wouldn’t prepare her for this - having the carnage be personal.

“Kate, baby, it looks good. It’s just fine, sweetheart. Come on. Don’t be mad at me.” He was hanging on to her, chin at the top of her shoulder, but his mouth was pressed up against her jaw, her neck.

She didn’t feel like it. And that too churned up in her guts, along with the feeling of pulling thread out of his wrist and watching it bleed, tugging flesh away from flesh and, damn it, she wanted to crawl into bed alone.

She shrugged him off of her, and he lifted his chin, but he wouldn’t let go of her waist, the vicious and angry flesh standing out like neon on his wrist. She wanted to get out of here; she needed to get clear of it.

“Since you’re better now, you should probably go.” She ducked out of his arms as he stood in the concussion of her statement, and she managed to get to the bathroom door before he grabbed her.

She’d had training now - she could have broken his hold. But it would have required twisting his injured wrist and she couldn’t find the stomach for it. When push came to shove, literally, she was hard against the bathroom wall with his body pressed over hers.

“Yeah, I’m healing, Beckett. It’s getting there. But I’m not leaving you with a couple of my father’s pets outside your door.”

“I can handle it,” she said flatly.

“I know you can,” he smirked. His eyes were hooded, and she saw that he was closing himself off, shutting things down. “Not talking about you here, baby. I’m talking about me. I’m not leaving when there are two guys right outside who are most likely on orders to grab me the second I show my damn face.”

She scowled. “Fine. So you’re stuck here.”

“Stuck? No place I’d rather be.” He was still smiling but so much of the bright and fluid emotion had been dammed up. King had said... King had warned her he has this air of nothing ever reaching him. 

She’d thought - Castle? Not Castle.

But here it was, a shift so subtle she might never have seen it if King hadn’t said he was capable of being a blank slate.

It was here now. He was cutting it off, he was dousing the flame right in front of her eyes.

“Beckett?”

She ached; she was tired and she ached and she didn’t want to do this any more.

“I’m - going to bed,” she rasped. “I don’t like therapy.”

It didn’t take anything at all to slither right out from under his arm and grab the door knob. She was out of the bathroom and down the hall to her bedroom before he said another word, and when she got to the bed, she was grateful she’d changed out of her nice clothes.

She crawled right in and buried her eyes in the cool relief of her pillow.

\-----

Castle stood in the bathroom, staring down at his wrist.

Was it so different?

He’d healed, was healing; he wasn’t at 100% of course, and the flesh was ragged where he’d told her to go ahead and dig it out. It stung in those places, felt raw, and he didn’t want to be going hand-to-hand with anyone right now, but it would be just fine.

She had looked sick.

She had looked soulsick. He’d tried joking her out of it, tried to be crude enough to set her teeth on edge and her hackles up, but she’d folded instead. Folded right in on herself.

His wrist hurt. He’d pushed it a little, trying to prove something to her he was never going to be able to prove, prove he was strong enough to take it, whatever she dished out, whatever was dark and terrible in them, in her, in this life. 

She had said, I don’t like therapy. And she’d slipped out of his grasp like smoke, gone before he could even touch her.

This wasn’t Beckett. Beckett didn’t do this. Beckett didn’t crawl into bed and hide, with that look on her face like he’d kicked her in the nuts. 

What had King said to her, done to her?

Castle clenched his fists, relishing the hard-start to his heart as the jolt of raw skin poured pain through nerve receptors. He moved fast out of the bathroom and headed for the living room, found his shiny new smartphone on the dining room table.

He went into the kitchen with it, already dialing King, and he pushed up the kitchen faucet, opening the tap. As the water ran, the white noise masking any parabolic mics his father might have out there, Castle waited for King to answer.

When he did, Castle didn’t even ID himself. “What did you do to her? What did you say to make her look like this?”

“Rich-Rick? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Beckett. What did you say in therapy that-”

“I can’t divulge information in a therapy session, Rick.”

“This isn’t - this is a national security issue. This isn’t just some patient. She’s-” What, what, what? His? His. She was his, and he was a damn CIA agent who had shuttled her off to a member of his debrief team, snaring her ever tighter in the web of lies and countermeasures and risk that had put them here in the first place.

“Rick, our therapy sessions are not a matter of national security. Hers or yours either. What we say to each other goes no further.” He meant Black, that nothing Castle said went back to John Black. Hell. Hell, he hadn’t even thought of that, of Kate’s therapy sessions being notated and indexed for his father’s perusal. “If I extend you that respect, then I ask you to respect it towards Kate as well.”

“But you’ve gutted her out,” he hissed.

“Have I? She left in perfectly good condition.”

“Don’t be fucking smart,” he rasped, bowing forward over the phone. “She’s in bed. It’s four o’clock in the afternoon. She just crawled into bed.”

“Just now?”

“Just-” He narrowed his eyes. “What does that mean?”

“I generally haven’t seen delayed response in types like Kate.”

“What does that mean,” he repeated, gritting his teeth. 

“If a person like Kate - not her specifically, Rick, because I can’t talk about a patient - but if someone like her had felt - well, gutted out was your term - when she left, you’d have seen it. She might even have wandered the city for hours, gone somewhere private, not come back until late.”

“But...” That made sense, actually. “But she said - she said she didn’t like therapy and then she crawled into bed.”

“I can sense that this has you pretty upset, Rick, so it must be something. I just don’t think it’s entirely about therapy.”

“What do I - do?”

“Well, perhaps it’s more about what did you do?”

“Me?” Castle sank back against the counter. “What did I do.”

“Sometimes we can’t address the thing we did,” King went on. “Sometimes it’s better to go along with a person, pretend it never happened - sometimes that’s what they need. And we’re smart for letting it ride; it doesn’t do the other person any good to have their weaknesses thrown up in her face.”

Her face. “Okay,” he said, but it wasn’t. He didn’t know. He was smart to let it ride, that’s what King had said. Smart to not confront Kate about - about anything - about feelings.

The baby dragon. Don’t confront the dragon, just slide around it, come at it from behind, find the vulnerable place.

“The vulnerable place,” he murmured.

“Oh, Rick. Sometimes - sometimes with a person who is - shall we say argumentative? combative? Sometimes it’s all a vulnerable place.”

“What do I do,” he cried out. God, he sounded pathetic. He was a damn grown man. He didn’t need fucking dating advice from a therapist. 

“When it’s not what they need, when it’s not good for them, you have to do the thing that is good for them, that is what they need. Even if they don’t want you to be that for them.”

Be that for them. Be what Kate needed. Stop acting like an asshole and act like - like the man who loved her.

“She’ll kill me,” he husked. “She’ll kick me out of her house. I’ll never see her again.”

“Are you sure?”

He wasn’t sure about anything.

\-----

He could taste blood on his tongue.

He figured it was his heart in his throat, choking him.

She was going to kick him out; she was going to be furious and disdainful and coldly sarcastic with anything he said or did to help, to be what she needed, to love her. 

And fuck, it was going to hurt.

It already hurt.

The dog was whining at him, sitting at his feet, glancing back to the hallway every two seconds. Whining pitifully as if to say, Aren't you going to do something?

I don't want to. Don't make me leave. Don't make me leave.

Please, he just-

He could just sit here in the chair. He could just sit here and wait for her to come out again, let her sleep it off maybe. He could just be here when she showed up, right? That was - that was being a good guy. Right? He could just sit right here, very still, not make noise, and he'd do - he'd do everything else. He could take the dog out when it was time and play with him so that he didn't disturb Beckett, and he could make dinner - he was really getting good at that - and he could be as inconspicuous as possible. Fuck, that was his life's work, wasn't it?

He was good at fading into the background.

Castle hung his head.

Wasn't what she needed. Wasn't love.

What did he know?

But out here, sitting in a chair, wouldn't cut it. Coward - that's what it was. He knew that much. Army had trained him, drilled it into his head. Sometimes you were the guy on the front lines, sometimes that's just what had to happen. He knew that; he'd accepted it. Wasn't like Beckett was an actual physical threat. Wasn't like he wouldn't be able to take the two assholes outside if it came to it.

The walk to Harlem would be humiliating; it would wring out his guts. But he'd get to that bare apartment and he'd sit in that chair in that living room and he'd survive. That's what he did.

But sitting here, twenty feet from the woman he loved, not going to her was the worst kind of coward.

So Castle stood up to throw himself on the grenade.

\-----

Words were ash in his mouth. He didn't have them to speak anyway.

Her bedroom door wasn't locked. That scared him too. She always locked him out when she was so furious and he'd figured out pretty quickly it was because she wanted him to try harder. Do better. Be more than you are, asshole, and don't come to me until you're clever enough to have me.

That's what he told himself.

But an unlocked door was giving up. An unlocked door was no longer even caring. Unlocked door was I've made up my mind without you and nothing you can do will change it.

He opened the door and he wanted - wanted there to be magic words. But he didn't have them.

When he lifted his eyes to the bed, she had her back to him. He could make out the hunch of her shoulder under the covers, the dark wing of her hair. Her face was towards the windows but he thought she was mostly buried in the pillow.

He already hurt. He damn well ached, and it just chasmed wider, deeper, staring at her and wishing it wouldn't go like this.

He swallowed and walked to the bed and saw the instant she realized he was in the room, and he thought - now, I'll know what to say. Now I'll have the words, the right thing, the joke that makes her smile again.

But he didn't. And she didn't look at him, didn't move except to draw her shoulder up to her ear and hide even the strip of skin at her jaw that he could see.

He hurt so much he ached. Every bone. Every breath.

He sank down on the mattress and before he even knew what he was doing, he was canting towards her body. He felt that tantalizing warmth of her through the bedspread and it wasn't enough, wasn't enough. He had to get - he drew up his knees and dug his feet under the sheets and slid down underneath with her, the warm and close space, lined his body up to hers.

She went rigid.

He didn't care; he couldn't stop. She was going to tell him to leave and he needed - needed to do this. He had to love her; it was the pain and the ache in his breath and if he couldn't just wrap himself around her and sink down, if he couldn't wrap her up in him, then he was no good to anyone.

He pressed his face to her shoulder blade and wrapped his arms around her and drew her into the hollow place he had for her. She was passive and stiff but not resistant, and he just - it was all he had. All he could do.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

She was heat and steel in his arms, unmoving, and he just twined his arm up between her breasts and gripped the elbow she'd pushed under her head. He slid a knee between hers and lifted his thigh until she was draped as much on him as he was on her and he didn't let go. He couldn't let go.

Don't make me leave. Don't leave. Just don't leave me.

\-----


	13. Chapter 13

She was rigid, but he was rigid too - and for what reason? - and so they both were just - tense and stiffly held and trying not to breathe.

And then Castle flexed his bicep so that his arm under her pillow came curling up and she was nose deep in his elbow, smelling the distinctive musk of his skin even as her body was dragged back into his chest.

She closed her eyes and turned her forehead into his arm, breathing shallowly to keep from being overwhelmed by that scent, and Castle didn't move. Didn't touch her, didn't tease, just gripped her like they were both drowning.

She could feel the pounding of his pulse every place their bodies met, feel it in his injured wrist pressed into her chest. 

She was holding herself so still her muscles were beginning to shake, and if he started talking now, if he opened his mouth and started saying shit, if he ruined it-

She drew in a long breath but there was nothing. She was braced for it, she realized, braced for - anything - a see you later, a fuck, a stupid comment - but there was nothing.

His arm tightened and then loosened and she could feel the play of his muscle under her cheek. And the thick spread of his thigh between hers, the heat of him at her back.

She was too tired to do this. Too - messed up. She wasn't someone who could... she was a cop, and she'd been suspended from the one place she knew backwards and front, in and out, suspended for five days from her life and she didn't know how to do this one. Laundry and this man and figuring out a dinner menu for the next few nights and taking the dog out and - she just - she never wanted to tease black thread out of man's body and watch the bleeding flesh come out with it and the puckering wound weep with it and the-

She sucked in another breath, gulping it down, but it smelled like him, richly him, and her eyes burned. But when she curled in, his arm was there with that ragged, almost-healed wound and she touched the heat of his skin and felt below it the bone and she had to get away.

She found herself twisting in the cage of his arms, arching away from the wound, and there he was, chest to chest now, and his body shuddered around her. His arms tightened and his legs were tangled with hers and she was pinned, trapped, and he was swallowing hard and harder and she was afraid. She was afraid and she couldn't bring herself to lift her head to look at him because she didn't know at all what she'd see.

But he didn't speak. And he didn't let her go. And she was so weary of trying so hard to be - to be what - to be anything.

She was a cop and not whatever else this was, and she didn't know how to be or do anything other and so she quit.

She quit trying. 

She pressed her face to his shoulder and closed her eyes, and her whole body fell into him and he sighed back, and still, still he hadn't let go.

\-----

Cujo whuffled in a dream and his back leg kicked out, knocking into her ass, and she was nudged a little by it, pushed out of the dark nothing and into more awareness. 

The dog had climbed into bed with them at some point; she couldn't pinpoint the moment, but she felt him at her back. Cujo had dug in too, making a place for himself, unwilling to be moved. She didn't have it in her to move him, and she wasn't sleeping anyway, and Castle wasn't either. They were just breathing and even that felt like some kind of damn accomplishment.

She didn't want to talk but now it was beginning to feel ridiculous, hiding out in bed and not sleeping, not even fucking, especially when he had so little time actually being here. But Castle hadn't moved to start something and he knew she was always up for it - he never even asked any more, he just rolled into her and took her before she could wake sometimes - and so if he wanted it, if he had really wanted to go for it, he would have.

So she didn't either. She just - didn't.

At some point, a hug had to end, right? At some point, the weariness gave way to something - either sleep to repair damaged systems or sheer boredom. She was definitely not sleeping - it was not even five - and boredom was looking really good right now.

Felt good to be nothing. No expectations. And her dad was going fishing with a friend and the dog was asleep and not pleading for a walk and Castle was - um, being rather unlike himself.

But what did she know?

A blank slate. Don't let his flat affect fool you, he feels things. As if King expected her to be confronted with a lack of emotion, when instead all she got from Castle was rampant and chaotic emotion. He emoted all over her, teasing, whining, pouting, lusting, laughing, yelling, coming. 

But he turned it on and off. She'd seen him do that in the bathroom, and she didn't know how to trust that. She didn't know if that was real, which position was more real than the other, or if one was just an outright lie. He was clever and he was so much smoother than she'd given him credit for in the beginning, and she'd seen him talk about a mission and knew how he'd completed them, and that man didn't line up with the one curled around her.

It mattered which man was real. She couldn't - she had to know what she was dealing with here.

A blank slate but he feels things.

He feels things but he turns it off.

She felt things but she hadn't mastered that art of off quite yet; that was why she was careful to never start feeling things. She was always off, never on, because life required a fucking off switch and she wasn't built to throw it. So default setting had to be off. Had to.

His hand at her waist shifted, moved down and encountered the dog, and she braced herself but he didn't kick Cujo out. He just wriggled his own arm tighter and higher, pressing between her shoulder blades so that she was as close to him as he could get her. He didn't even kick at the dog. He seemed perfectly willing to let Cujo stay. 

Shit, he was the one who had rescued the damn thing, brought it to her to keep because he couldn't, and he wasn't the kind of person - she hadn't thought - to care about what happened to a stupid dog. 

Castle's arms flexed around her, shifting below and beside her, and his heart still beat so steady and fast and waiting.

She didn't think it was possible for human beings to turn it off. Not the good ones. And Castle was a good one.

“Are we not talking?” she said finally, giving up on the silence.

Castle’s arms tightened. “I could talk.”

“I don’t have anything to say.”

“I could talk and you could just listen?” he said. She could tell that he’d meant it lightly but it had all the weight of forever in it.

She nudged her chin against his chest, slowly slid her palm to his side. “I don’t know that I’m up for a - a long conversation.”

She didn’t want to start it. Definitions and what are we doing here and just - she didn’t want to think about it. Dr King had already poked his nose into-

“Okay. That’s good. I - don’t think I want to say a lot of things. Just - just that - I don’t want to leave.”

She clutched his shirt, frowning into the dark space of his body. “Castle. You-”

“Please. I mean. Please just don’t kick me out. I’m begging you, Beckett. I’d go if you really - but please don’t. I get so little time with you as it is. I’m always - gone. I’m always gone and I don’t want to waste a second of the time that I do get to actually - have you in front of me. Touch you.”

His palm slid up her back and his fingers sank into her hair, gripped the nape of her neck. She knew he must - or she had thought he must need much more... she had assumed his sexual appetite was fairly large, that he had been taking his fill wherever he happened to be stationed.

But he acted like a man starving when he came to her.

For affection.

No, no just - it wasn’t affection, for fuck’s sake. He wasn’t a dog. A cute puppy with those sad blue eyes. A wolf puppy, a little dangerous, something wild in him that she would never tame.

Oh, fuck. What was her fucking problem. He wasn’t a damn-

“Beckett?”

“I’m not kicking you out,” she husked. “Damn it. I just meant - if you were fine, you should probably get back to - to your father.”

“He did this to me,” Castle said darkly, but his arms squeezed her tighter, too tight. She felt her ribs being crushed in the sudden strength of him.

Why was that so fucking erotic?

“Okay,” she rasped. “But your wrist is healed. And that... that means...”

“That means I can do this,” he growled. His wounded arm traveled south - whoa, fuck, not so wounded - his palm sliding over her ass inside her jeans, squeezing. “Means we have full range of motion again, love, and I plan on putting it to good use.”

How had it gone from awkward and still and damaged straight to his fingers between her legs?

“Castle,” she gasped, gripping his bicep. He stroked two fingers around her clit, sliding his body over hers. She bared her teeth and cried out, her hips rising to meet his hand.

She rode him, eyes pressed tightly closed, unwilling and unable to look. Castle sucked on her ear and began to chant dark spells, fucking hot, unintelligible, beautiful words that snaked inside her and curled in her guts.

“Everything I want to say, feel it, feel it, right here, my fingers in your sex-”

She moaned and rose up, panting, thrashing against the iron-hard belt of his hand at her pelvis, the manacle of his grip on the back of her neck. He forced her orgasm right out of her and she cried out as she came, heart tripping and faltering, her eyes still closed.

His mouth skimmed her jaw and up to her lips, dusted a light, feather-soft kiss there.

She opened her eyes, her body liquid and sliding towards his.

A shift of bodies gave her a bewildering confusion, and Castle laughed, slid his hand out from between her legs to put an elbow into something.

“Off the bed, Cujo.”

Kate groaned, slamming her eyes shut, but she felt the laughter being pulled right up out of her.

Castle was still humming with amusement when he peeled her jeans off her legs and put his mouth on her. Humming.

She climaxed before he could press her knees apart.

\-----

He didn’t want to leave. 

She was thrumming with her orgasm, vibrating around his tongue and lips, and she tasted like honey and smoke. So he just didn’t quit - he couldn’t quit her - she was nectar and paradise and all those perfect right things that Castle had never had before.

She gasped and her knees tried to clutch his head; he pressed her down and she arched back up, her hips working between him and the mattress. He felt it when she began to curl up with tension again, her body hard and strong as her muscles clenched for him.

He hummed and she cried out, rocking forward, her arms hooking under his armpits and dragging him away.

“No, no, no-” she gasped. “Inside me. Fuck, right now. I need you.”

He licked his bottom lip and she groaned, attacked his mouth, sucking on his tongue and catapulting them backwards. He flopped hard onto his spine, head hanging off the mattress, and she laughed on a gasp, lifting up from him, eyes bright.

He clamped his hands on her hips and dragged her pelvis into his chest, felt her arousal at his abs. She shivered, breasts shimmying, and he coasted his hands up to touch those tantalizing-

“Fuck,” she gasped. Her body rocked back on his cock and he squeezed too hard in retaliation, twisting her nipples against his thumbs. She mewled, curling in to him, but he kept her up, propping her above him with his hands kneading her breasts. Kate’s head dropped forward, hair shagging beautifully around her face, her eyes deep and black on his.

“Take me,” he growled.

She blinked, and her hands fumbled at his hip bones before she slid back, a rough speed bump over his cock before she got a grip on him. He groaned, hips jerking, eyes slipping shut despite himself.

She worked his cock with a hand, rubbing herself against him, these breathy, impossible sounds coming out of her mouth. Nothing at all like Beckett, nothing at all the woman who glared at him across the room, nothing at all like the detective who kept changing the locks on him.

He lifted his head, caught up in the mewling, sinuous woman above him. A siren. Her hair touching her shoulders, her breasts so pale against the sun-rich color of his hands, the long expanse of her belly down to that violently dark thatch of hair.

And his cock, teasing and being teased, vicious and angry for her, raging in her supple hands. 

Her eyes flashed open and stared down at him, locking him in, and her tongue touched her lip.

“Let me in,” he husked. “Come on, love. It’s time. No more playing around.”

She bit her bottom lip, teeth catching that beautiful pink even as her knees widened and she rose up. Her breaths were shallow but pushing her breasts into his hands, and he cupped her, let her know he was there, holding her up.

“I want you,” she whispered, teeth still biting her lip. “I want you.”

“I know,” he murmured, lifting up and pressing his body to hers. She gasped and closed her eyes, her chin turning away from him. He kissed the rise of her jaw, that sharp line, and her hands fluttered at his abs, fingers tracing up to his shoulders.

“Help me,” she mewled. “Please. Help me - I want-”

He coasted a hand down her inside thigh, found that beautifully slick place where all of her need pulsed and ached for him. It was only a matter of guidance.

And he was sliding inside her body.

She groaned, opened her mouth to brush her lips to his, their bodies catching each other’s, and her tongue touched his teeth.

“Now fuck me,” she breathed.

“Love,” he countered, and thrust his cock to the hilt.

\-----

“You feel so good,” he whispered into her neck. Her hair was soft and humid around his cheeks and he thrust again, again, driving himself as deep as her body would allow, deeper.

“Don’t stop,” she moaned.

He couldn’t for the life of him. Every time he thrust, their bodies pressed skin to skin and it felt like he was melting into her. The barrier between them disappeared, had disappeared, was disappearing. She was allowing him everything; she was a wave rolling over him, moving inside him.

“Kate,” he gasped. His thrusts were becoming impossible, earth-shattering; he needed her with him. “Kate, please.”

“Don’t stop,” she growled. “Don’t you dare.”

“Need you,” he grit out. His body was so tight with it, his balls fucking hard as rocks so coiled and ready. Sh needed to come. She had to come. She absolutely had to come with him. “Same, same time. Come on, baby. With me.”

“Don’t stop,” she mewled. “Please don’t stop. Wanna do this - forever. Have you forever.”

“God,” he gasped. Just that alone and it threatened to come undone. How long could he last when she was the one gripping him, so tight and hot and wet and moving like a beautiful creature?

“Forever, don’t stop. Don’t-”

“Won’t,” he got out, promising her the unpromiseable. Promising her because she made him want it, made him need her constantly.

Castle reached between them and circled the base of his cock, a fierce pressure that kept the rising urgency at a dull roar, calmed the storm. The haze cleared and he blinked as he saw her, the way she undulated slowly in his lap, her head tilted back, chin sharp.

And then she lifted her head and her eyes caught his, hooked, deep. She opened her mouth and breathed his name, lightly touched her fingers to his face.

“Kate,” he husked. He was gonna cry.

The backs of her fingers traced back along his cheeks, up to his forehead. “Don’t stop,” she whispered.

He released himself and gripped her knees, going still inside her, deep inside her, and she cupped his face.

He stared down into her, wanting so much, wanting her forever, completely willing for this to be all he ever got from her, the never stop of her desperation, but he ached for the rest, for all the rest of it, the beautiful and terrible force of her life.

She closed her eyes, shutting him out, but her fingers skimmed back through his hair, gripped him, fists on the nape of his neck. She fell forward into him, pressing her breasts to his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her.

She sucked in a breath that sobbed out again, but it was the only one. And then she was coming apart, unspooling in his arms, her climax blossoming through her body and gripping his cock.

Her palms were hot on his back and her mouth opened at his jaw, tongue touching him. Even in the midst of her orgasm, she began to rock, throwing herself against his cock, her breasts electric against his chest, her body liquid heat rolling in his arms.

“Don’t stop,” he husked at her ear, sucking at her skin. Sucking harder, hard enough to bring up her blood, and she moaned. “Don’t stop. Don’t you dare stop, Kate.”

She tightened her arm at his neck and scraped her teeth back to his ear. “Make me.”

Castle gripped her shoulder and shoved her back down to the bed, her head hitting the pillow and her hair corona-ing around her face. She stared up at him as he laid over her, and Castle gripped her hands at his shoulders, pushed her arms up above her head.

He thrust inside her. “Oh, I will.” She whimpered and he thrust again, harder. “I will fucking make you, Kate Beckett. Don’t you dare stop needing me. Wanting me. Don’t ever stop.”

And then he fucked her.

\-----

He held her down and he fucked her.

She couldn’t move. His thighs pressed her legs down and apart, trapping her, and his chest and belly rocked into her, making it hard to catch a deep breath. She tried to wrap her arms around him but his fingers laced with hers and kept her hands over her head.

She moaned and he didn’t care, pounding fiercely inside her, slamming so that their pelvic bones kept hooking. She was being pressed out, demolished, fucked-

But she kept feeling his fingers caressing her neck. She kept remembering how all that hope had welled up in his eyes when he looked at her. She kept feeling their bodies humming with closeness and his slow movements and how he cradled her body.

He was fucking her.

But she kept feeling all that tender, gorgeous, careful-

He growled her name and pounded deep, hurting her; she was going to be so fucking sore tomorrow; she was bursting apart at the seams it was so damn good.

She kept sensing the ghost of his gaze on her and the way he cupped her chin and touched his mouth lightly against hers. She kept feeling it. Feeling how deep, how wide, how insurmountable it was, how it would never stop, she could never - never - she would never see the end of it with him.

“Beckett-”

She moaned and tried to arch, tried to meet him, but he broke rhythm and forced her back down, ramming deep. His cock seemed to grow twice as thick and then he burst into a furious orgasm, working out his raging need within her cunt until she was unraveling, fraying out, coming hard with him.

When it was sticky and hot and half-gasping, when it was over but hell no not over, he dragged his hand down her arm and fell against her side, a weight and heaviness.

But she kept feeling it, the way he’d looked at her, how he’d promised the impossible, and yet - and yet-

It was all she could hold inside her.

\-----

Kate played with his fingers, the wide digits extruding from his heavy hand. Her own fingers were so thin in comparison, but nearly long than his own. He had meat-slabs for hands, though not disproportionate, just so... capable.

“Having fun?” he rumbled. He was lying on his stomach, head on her pillow and close, while she was on her back, his arm pressed at her stomach as if to half hold on to her.

She smiled and skated the back of her fingers down his hand to hover above his wrist. “Yup. Fun.”

He wriggled his fingers under hers and she turned her head, caught the smile he was giving her. She kissed the sharp edge of his nose near her mouth and pressed into him, nearly cheek to cheek, the feel of the hard bone under her temple.

“How’s the wrist?” she said finally, straightening again. Castle shifted a knee over her thigh and wriggled closer, his elbow digging into her stomach for leverage and sending a pleasant frisson through her.

“It’s okay,” he answered. “Aches a little in the bone. Memory of a blade.”

Memory of a blade. She felt the goose bumps race across her skin. “Why don’t you have - a partner?” she said. “Someone who - had your back out there?”

Castle cleared his throat and shifted into her, pressing the pillow away from his mouth with a nudge of his nose. “I do. Sort of.”

She turned on her side, still holding on to his injured arm, surprised by the hesitance in his voice - and the information. “You do? Who?”

He blinked and there was an instant of silence before she realized - duh, CIA secrets - but he had already started to answer.

“No,” she said, overriding him. “No, not if you-”

“Mark Eastman.”

She sighed, reached out to stroke her fingers over his loose lips. “Don’t tell me.”

“You asked. He - he’s my stateside support. And we usually do missions together in the field when it’s - big. But he wasn’t on this one. In fact, my father kept Eastman out of it on purpose. It was a test for me.”

“A test,” she echoed, sighing at the look on his face. Eastman. “Is Eastman - is he good?”

“Very. He trained me. He’s about ten years older than I am. He was my commanding officer in the army, or well, he was inserted as such.”

“Inserted. To watch out for you,” she realized out loud. “Oh. Well, if your father did that-?”

Castle regarded her steadily.

She sighed. “No, I don’t believe he - he doesn’t strike me as being particularly, um, familial.”

“Your dad loves you, you know?” he said gruffly. She had a moment where she wanted to hotly defend her father, yes, I know he does, no matter what you think, and then it fizzled out as she recognized - Castle didn’t know. Not with his own father.

“I know,” she whispered then. “Even with - everything - I still know it. I feel it.”

“I don’t feel...” he trailed off, shrugged, gave her a tired smile. “Anything? Really, anything at all. Like a machine that way.”

“But with me-” she bit off. Shit.

“Love,” he husked, catching her cheek with his injured hand. “You are the only woman I’ve ever felt this much with.”

“I meant...” she frowned. “I don’t mean - I just - when you’re inside me, Rick, there’s so much feeling in it. You aren’t at all a machine.”

His thumb stroked at her bottom lip, cascading awareness into her breasts, her belly. She eased closer, pushing her knee between his thighs, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her the rest of the way.

“Never with you,” he murmured. “Feels good with you. Inside you.”  
She shivered again, the sound of his voice at her ear and the way her body responded already. She could really go for-

“I’m tired,” he sighed. “So tired of all of it. I just wish...”

She waited, held still and caught in his embrace, but she never found out what he wished.

He’d fallen asleep.

\-----


	14. Chapter 14

She woke drenched in blood.

No.

No, no.

No blood. No blood. Just - just nightmare sweat.

Just a nightmare.

Beckett pressed her hand into her eyes and swallowed, had to move. She slithered out from under Castle’s body, heavy and hot, and fell to her knees on the floor.

She crawled for as long as it took her still-adrenaline-soaked brain to function in reality, and then she staggered to her feet and ricocheted off the doorframe and down the hall. She shut the door after her in the bathroom, sucked in lungfuls of air as she ran water in the sink.

She cupped her hands but blanched when the wetness slid over her skin like blood.

Hastily cutting off the water, she backed up, pressed fists into her eyes, tried to block out the sight of blood.

No use. Kinda all over her. She wouldn’t be getting back to sleep tonight.

Or well, she would. All too easily. She was exhausted enough for a hard sleep, but the nightmares would be there, all the same. Castle’s blood but her mother’s body. Her father on the floor of the kitchen. Castle - dying. Dying. She just-

Couldn’t.

She felt too damn much and it was nine o’clock at night and she was up for fucking good and she felt too damn much. Fucking hell, why couldn’t she just learn?

Why did she never learn?

He’d be gone though. He’d go back to his post or whatever the fuck they called it, and she could use that time to figure out how to rub it out of her, how to stop feeling it when he wasn’t there. And then when he was - well - she made him feel good. She could do that, feeling good.

She just needed to get out of here for a few. Just. A minute. Ten minutes. Not here, not smelling him in her clothes. Cold air and crisp night and the smell of pollution and sidewalk and crusted dumpsters.

Beckett sneaked back into her bedroom, rooted around in the bottom of her closet in the dark, seeking her Nikes. She kept poking the backs of her hands with the sharp heels of shoes she never used to be able to wear, and why the hell didn't she wear them during office hours? When she was on the street, they made her feel like she could kick a man's balls down his throat, but she'd donned flats like they were orthopedics, trying not to ruffle any feathers, trying not to make any more waves than her aggressive ambition and surly attitude already did.

Fuck it. She loved these heels. She had a thousand heels. She felt like a dominatrix in them; she felt like she got shit done. She was wearing heels.

Where were her damn shoes?

She grunted when a pile of boots cascaded out around her. Castle shifted in bed and she turned her head sharply back to look, wary, waiting. He didn't wake, and she finally felt laces tangled around the straps of a complicated shoe, worked in the darkness to get her sneakers free.

Finally. Fuck that had taken entirely too long. She was shaking. She hated when she got like this - practically writhing with a need that never could be filled to her contentment.

Except when Castle did that thing - and her hands were bound - and he had this look on his face - and she would always crawl out of her skin with it, and him cursing darkly at her as he came.

Yeah, that always... fuck. That always did her.

A run would have to suffice.

She found her running shorts but not her capris, wore them anyway, changing in the dark. She flung her shirt off over her head, snagged a sports bra from the laundry hamper. Smelled, but she didn't care. She pulled the pajama top back on, yanked socks up to her ankles, shoved her feet into shoes. 

Castle was still as stone in her bed. She couldn't help taking a long look of him, scraping her hair back with her fingers, watching the up and down of his chest. He had the world's slowest fucking heart beat. What the hell? Was he even breathing?

She leaned in over him, hair snaking around her cheeks, and his eyes opened.

She sucked in a breath, surprised, but he must not have been really awake. He gave her a sleepy, little-boy smile, all dopey adoration, and his eyes slipped shut again.

Beckett scurried away from the bed, yanked her hair into a pony tail, but she had disturbed the dog. Cujo followed her like a ghost out of the bedroom and down the hall, even into the kitchen like he thought she was going for food. She eyed the over-large wolf of a dog and grabbed her extra key from the kitchen junk drawer. She tucked it down into her sock until she felt it scraping against her ankle, awareness so that she wouldn't lose it, and then she went to the door.

Cujo was at her heels.

"No," she hissed. "Stay."

Cujo whined in his throat and Kate shot an anxious look down the hall. 

"Stay. You're staying. Shoo - get - fuck." She growled at the beast as he nosed right into the crotch of her running shorts, and she shoved his muzzle away. "You're disgusting, you know that? As disgustingly crude as he is."

Cujo liked the smell of her. It was the most embarrassing thing in public - out walking the dog, and she maybe had been thinking about Castle maybe coming home soon, and the fucking dog wanted only to put his nose against her and take great big whuffs. She had this stupid idea that it was when he thought Castle was coming around and it made him happy, and so fuck, fuck. She had to get this idiot dog off of her.

"Hey, you big beast. You nasty little curr. Come on. Dinner. Wanna eat, Cujo? Huh? Let's get dinner."

Beckett yanked him by the collar back into the kitchen, pulled open the fridge for the good shit that cost an arm and a leg. She had half a can left from a couple days ago, and she nudged the big dog out of her way to dump it into the bowl. He still had dry food left, and she grabbed a spoon to mix it all together.

Cujo obediently waited for her to be done, his tail thumping hard against the counters, and then she tilted the can towards him. He slurped his tongue inside and around, eager and strong, and she held it until he was done, then pitched the can into the recycling.

He made moon eyes at her for it and then started scarfing down his dinner.

Kate went back to the door but he was happy and ignoring her, and she felt his tongue still on her hand, her skin drying where he'd licked her, and she probably smelled rather disgusting at the moment. Sweat-sex, nightmares, and dog. Gross.

She pressed the button on the knob to lock it behind her, stepped out into her hallway. 

She needed to get out of here.

\-----

Beckett went fast.

She was racing against the pulse of her own still-dark heart, racing against the lure of the man in her bed, racing to beat back the insidious want that threatened to root.

To root?

Fuck. It had already done that. It was beginning to grow, to send out shoots, new life, green leaves, fucking flowers. 

He had brought her flowers before. Four or five times. Whenever it was a short time away, he had the tendency to get excited, overeager; he brought her flowers or chocolate sauce and ice cream or once - once - he’d brought her back a dress from Morocco. She still felt it against her skin, soft, light, delicate. He’d fucked her over the kitchen counter, the dress pushed up above her ass, but it had been ruined by the - well, the mess of them plus dinner.

She was racing against the inevitable, and she fucking knew it.

Hard to ignore. She wasn’t the kind of person who liked to willfully deceive herself; she was the one who just doggedly went after the fucking truth, no matter the consequences, because the truth could set her free.

The truth was power. Power to heal, to love, to grow, to live - power to make the world right.

The truth was - Castle was fast becoming... more than she could handle. 

She raced it out; beat it out through her tennis shoes, pounded the sidewalk to grind it into dust. Her need. Her want. Her stupid, defenseless heart.

Had to be better at this. Richard Castle was a fucking CIA operative. He was not boyfriend material.

He was a fucking awesome fuck, and that was fine. He enjoyed her too, obviously. He felt it with her and that didn’t hurt anyone.

But she had to get this shit closed down. Cut it off. 

Because it wasn’t a switch; she knew that much. Her father’s repeated - fuck, it just wasn’t possible to harden her heart enough to not feel that. But if she never walked that path, if she just never made that connection, then she’d be okay. It had worked so far. It had worked with Mike. Royce. It had worked with Royce.

She was so intent upon the pavement, the blaze of the walk sign in the darkness and the juke around people who wouldn’t move out of her way, that she didn’t realize at first.

But he was behind her.

She didn’t falter, didn’t slack her pace, but she knew that he was there, dogging her steps. It was early enough that people were out, going to and from dinner reservations, leaving work too late, that kind of thing. She was another body in the mass, an annoying one most likely, dodging and weaving, and at a stop sign, she bounced on her toes and used the passing vehicles’ windows to show her the reflection of the crowd behind her.

There he was.

Deleware, the fucking asshole.

She spotted a break in traffic and darted across, going against the light, heard the angry honk of a cab that had darted towards that same break. She escaped with her life, breathing hard, hoped she’d given that dick something to worry about it.

Castle had told her he was a fucking pencil pusher, a desk jockey, but he wasn’t. She’d met him face to face, her dog had taken a chunk out of his arm - that was no desk jockey.

And when she got to the entrance to the park, she cut a fast look behind her and discovered she was right.

Deleware was still there; she hadn’t shaken him at all.

He was far more than a pencil pusher.

\-----

She rounded on him in the park, back behind the trees where the darkness leached light from the safety lamps periodically along the path. 

He must have known she would.

She stood her ground, drenched in sweat, arches of her feet burning, and Deleware slowed a few meters out. He was still in the pool of light on the path and she was in darkness near a metal bench, waiting, still prey but willing to fight like the predator.

Deleware approached on soft feet, the cool reasoning in his eyes giving her more pause than the sidearm definitely hidden in the zippered sweatshirt.

He said nothing.

She waited, determined not to lose her cool, to handle her righteous fury, determined to be better this time.

Deleware said nothing. Watched her.

After a long silence, she realized he was following the rivers of sweat rolling down her neck and between her breasts, that his perusal took in her chest heaving with breaths and the length of her legs from her running shorts.

He liked to watch. He could do this all night.

He was shadowing her because it was his job and he had no need, absolutely none, to speak to her.

So she turned and began running again, moderating her pace at the beginning, sprinting when she had energy for it, going wickedly haphazard, making him keep up. He might not be an analyst, but he did sit at a desk for his cover, and she wanted to give him something to think about.

Other than her ass. Which she knew he was watching.

It was pissing her off. If she wanted someone to watch her ass, she’d get Castle down here.

He wouldn’t talk? Fine.

She made it hell on him to do his job. She stopped and started, she ran full tilt through a group of old women practicing yoga, she darted across the 85th Transverse in front of oncoming traffic, she went down strange paths.

And then she came across a mounted police officer at the edge of the Bridal Path and she stopped, blinking up at him. He leaned down, peering at her legs for an instant before his eyes took in her run-ragged appearance.

“Ma’am, stick to the lighted paths-”

“I’m a cop,” she got out. “Badge 41319, Vice Detective out of the 12th. I’ve got a guy following me. He’s-”

There he was. Trying to melt back into the shadows.

“I see him. How long has he been following you, Detective? Why aren’t you carrying your sidearm?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Because I can fucking take care of myself. He’s been following me since my apartment.” And I just want you to fucking shake him; he’s not here to rape and murder me.

“I’ll call this in; we’ll get bodies out here. Shit, he’s scrambling back for cover. I’m going after him-”

Kate repressed the triumph in her eyes and watched the officer - her big, fucking macho hero - ride off on the horse after Deleware.

“Ha.”

She made her way slowly back to her own block, exhausted beyond all recognition from her night running, the sweat slick and steaming from her body. She jogged as she approached her building, feeling pretty damn clever, until she spotted the figure on the corner.

Same spot.

Like there were fucking two of him.

She slowed to a stop not four feet from Deleware, wondered for a moment if he was going to let her leave this encounter without some kind of payback.

Probably not.

Hell. Her back-up piece was upstairs. Royce had given it to her because she was such a fucking relentless idiot; she kept doing this kind of shit.

Deleware straightened up. “I cannot wait. To get my hands. On you. Kate Beckett.”

She didn’t falter, kept coming, didn’t stop. She was getting inside her apartment, come hell or - whatever he had on him. He stood his ground.

“Gonna be so hot,” he whispered as she passed. “I can tie you up in ways he never will.”

She spun around with a drop kick aimed at his wounded arm, and he grunted, dodged back but it was too late. She felt the give of his muscle and flesh, the splitting of seams. He cursed and swung his uninjured arm, cuffed her in the side of her head before she could dart away.

Her ears rang and her eyes burned, but she stayed on her feet, scuttled back when he came towards her. She got another kick in at his arm and he sucked in a breath like he liked it.

He liked it.

Beckett bailed.

She turned and ran straight for her door, for her fucking weapon which she had thoughtlessly left upstairs - never again - and she slammed against it, already digging in her shoe for her key. 

She got the key into the knob when his hand came to her arm, but she flipped easily and broke his hold, jabbed another kick aimed at the dog bite. He caught her foot when the door unlocked but she turned on him, adrenaline and a small amount of panic fueling her desperate and wild attack.

She clawed at his face and got an eye, brought her knee up into his solar plexus, then smashed her heel down on his instep, grazing his ankle. She pushed her back into the unlocked door and it popped open, and then she was inside and slamming it shut on his face.

It locked automatically and she panted there, staring at him through the thick beveled glass, staring, staring, trying not to let him see fear.

She had no fear.

No fear.

\-----

She snagged at the rubber band tangled in her hair and yanked but it wouldn’t come and her arm and shoulder ached. She dropped her hand and stared at the living room in the darkness, trying to catch her breath, trying not to break down.

Castle came out of the back bedroom, cradling his arm at his chest like it hurt, and he had a flickering smile for her. “Go for a run?” And then as he got closer, “You look - God. Kate. Kate, what happened to you? What’s happened-”

She held up both hands and closed her eyes, staying him, taking another breath. “Nothing. Being stupid. Forgot the extra piece Royce gave me.”

“What?” he husked. “Kate, what’s happened to you?” He ignored her held up hands and came right into her, pushing past her raised arms and cradling her elbow and the back of her neck. “Your eyebrow and cheek are bleeding, love. Your arms are skinned. Let’s clean you up.”

She didn’t know why, but she couldn’t seem to find her resistance; she let him lead her along by the elbow towards her kitchen and she sat where he pushed her to sit.

Her heart was still thundering; he had to be able to hear it.

He came back with a wet paper towel and dabbed at her elbow even as his eyes kept darting to her face. “What happened,” he repeated. “You were running. And?”

“And he was being an asshole,” she gritted out, rolling her eyes. “So I fucked with him.”

“Who was being - Deleware? He did this?” Castle straightened up, eyes sealing over like ice. “Did he hit you in the face, Beckett?”

She pulled her chin out of his hand and stood. “I’m fine. I should have had my weapon - but I’m suspended and it’s at the 12th, but I’ve got a piece Royce gave me for back-up and I should have grabbed it-”

“Deleware hit you,” Castle said, his voice dark, low, dangerous. He touched the side of her face with his fingertips and then swung violently for the front door, leaving her on the bar stool.

“Castle,” she hissed, jumping up to come after him. “Castle, stop. Stop it. You fucking neanderthal.” She grabbed him by the arm but he kept going, his hand on the knob and yanking the door open right as she slid around in front of him.

The door bounced off her shoulder blade and her ass, snicked the back of her head so that she tilted forward, had to close her eyes. Fuck, twice in one night-

“Kate,” he gasped, catching her up against him. “God, don’t do that.” He clutched her harder, she felt it in her whole body, the ache that was spreading. Her eye was hot and begining to throb, her head so dizzy she might be sick.

“That hurts,” she whispered.

“I’m gonna kill him,” Castle husked. “Rip his fucking throat out-”

“No,” she got out, gripping his forearms. “No. You’re not.”

“He’s dead. He can’t do that to you. He-”

“Just because I’m an American citizen, and a cop - I don’t think he cares about that so much.”

“Not that,” Castle growled. “He can’t do that to you because you’re mine.”

She froze, but he was propelling her away from the door, as if to put her aside.

“No,” she barked, grabbing him. “You’re not going down there and proving me a liar.”

Castle paused, chest heaving against her hands. “Proving...”

“I said you were gone. You’re not supposed to be here. It’s just what he wants.”

Castle growled, gripping her by the elbow and one hip, pushed her back towards the kitchen. “Fine. Fine. Damn it. I will get him fucking later. You better believe it. I will exact every bruise on him, Kate. This is unacceptable.”

He was staring at her like she - like she needed it. Needed his revenge. She didn’t fucking need him to battle Deleware for her in some damn bid for her honor.

“No,” she scraped out. “I will. I get my own, Richard. Let go of me.”

“Hell, no,” he growled. “And what do you mean, Mike Royce’s gun?”

Fuck.

\-----

She kept lifting her hand to her eyes like she needed to hide, and then she’d remember the graze on the side of her face and stop, touch the swollen eyebrow carefully with a finger.

His guts were churning. There was more to this; he could feel it. She had looked terrified when she’d come through that door. Terrified in that deep way where everything went still and surreal.

She wouldn’t let him touch her at first. He was trying to clean her wounds, the abrasions on her elbows and the side of her face - Deleware had hit her. Deleware had hit her. He couldn’t fucking believe it.

Terrified. Of Del?

He dotted neosporin over her eyebrow and used his clean pinky finger to brush the hair back from her face, over her ear. She shivered and closed her eyes and he knew it was more. It was fucking more than a hit to the face.

“What happened,” he insisted. “Tell me, Beckett. What happened down there.”

“Nothing. I kicked his wounded arm.”

“I know you did,” he husked, “because you’re smart. And you’re dangerous. What did he do? What did he do, Kate.”

She sat up a little straighter, but her shoulders came in. He’d finally gotten her on the couch and he dabbed the last of the neosporin, shifting his eyes to hers to keep track of how she was doing. 

Kate swallowed and her hand came up again, hovered, dropped. “He, uh, said some things.”

“Said what things.” Deleware had said things that had made her kick his injured arm. Deleware had said-

“He can’t wait to tie me up.”

Castle froze.

Her eyes slid to his and away again.

He launched to his feet and got to the door, yanked it open, started thundering down the stairs. Fucking hell. No. Not okay. Not fucking okay. He was going to murder that asshole - that fucking perverted bastard.

“Rick.”

He jerked to a halt on the second flight of stairs, breathing hard, and he tilted his head back. She was standing at the top, leaning over the bannister. She looked young and afraid and his heart flipped.

“Please, don’t. Please come back upstairs.”

He took the steps two and three at a time, rushing back up to her, caught her around the shoulders even as she leaned into him. Her arms snaked around his neck and clung, and holy - holy God - he’d never seen her like this.

He wanted to carry her back into her apartment, but he didn’t think she’d like that at all. She’d wrench herself away from him just to prove she was fine, but he couldn’t let her do that. Not when she needed a fucking hug. She just needed someone who would keep her safe when she felt weakest.

“He’s seen us,” she husked against his neck. “He said tie me - tie me up in ways you never would.”

Rage was writhing in his chest. He just gripped her tighter, protected her, Kate, his. “He won’t. He will never. He won’t touch you. I’ll make sure of it. I’ll get him for this, Kate.”

“No,” she whispered. “He likes it. He likes it, Rick, God, I-”

He gave up, scooped her up behind the knees even as she protested and struggled, carried her all the way back inside her apartment and shut the door.

“You big fucking asshole, put me-”

“No,” he shouted, all of it bursting out of his chest. She went silent, staring at him, and he carried her to the couch and set her down. “No,” he said, softly now, closing his eyes. “No more. I can’t pretend with you right now. It’s taking everything I’ve got not to kill him. Give me this.”

She sat with her hands in fists and her eyebrow swollen and still that fear lurking at the back of her eyes, but the scowl dropped off her face.

He took in a breath of incremental relief, closed his eyes just to get it back. Something. A center. Calm. Something. It wasn’t there; he felt vicious and brutal and sick.

Deleware.

He had never seen that coming.

\-----


	15. Chapter 15

"Mike Royce's gun," he said again.

Kate handed it over to him and Castle disassembled it just like that, checking it over like she couldn't keep her own piece clean. She huffed at him, but it actually made her feel a little better, more with it. Her face ached, the whole side of her face where Deleware had hit her. Castle had gotten her there too, actually, so no wonder her ear was ringing and her skull ached.

"Mike Royce gave you this."

"He said I get into trouble."

Castle lifted a flashing grin to her. "You do. Why I like you so much, Beckett."

She rolled her eyes and had to stop, wincing. His fingers came up to caress the side of her face.

"Next time, with me," he husked.

"Last time was with you," she muttered.

He sighed, dropped his hand. "I brought this trouble right to your door, Kate, and I'm going to finish it. I promise you that."

Leaving her might be the best way to stop trouble from arriving with him. But she didn't say it. She just watched him reassemble her gun and hand it precisely back to her.

"It's a good piece," he said, reluctantly. "Where's Mike now?"

"I don't know," she got out. She ignored him as she put the gun back in her wooden box.

“How’s the head?”

“Headache,” she murmured, staring at the box. It was empty, the box, because her service weapon and her new detective's badge were at the 12th until her suspension was over.

She'd been stupid. She wouldn't be that stupid again. A suspension on her record was bad, would look bad when she wanted to transfer to Homicide. Montgomery might understand, but what if someone else came into the 12th and ran her house? What if the squad leader didn't want someone with her record on his team?

"You need ice?"

She almost said no, almost shrugged him off but it hurt. It hurt and it was late and she hadn't slept because of that damn nightmare and she’d gotten herself suspended, and then shrinked, and she still felt Deleware's eyes on her. "You think he's still down there?"

"I called the cops," he said.

"What?" she blurted out.

"I called to report a suspicious person, what I thought was a woman being attacked. Anonymously, of course. Cops should-"

And just like that, blue lights were bathing her apartment building, sirens off. "Fuck. They know where I live, Castle. They know a cop lives in this building-"

"Exactly," he said with relish. "Why they approached without the sirens. They're not stupid. They'll be knocking on your door, most likely, and you're going to report it."

"No, I'm not," she hissed.

"Yes, you are," he growled back, leaning in over her. "Because I have a plan."

"What the hell? I am not reporting this to my superior officer. I have been suspended, in case you didn't notice, and I am not adding another-"

"We're setting Deleware up for this. The plane in the city. He can take the fucking heat for it."

She blinked at him. "What?"

"I called Eastman while you were in the bathroom. I had him switch out the blood results from the CSU collection team. You know they moved it to the top of the list - plane landing in New York, that's a big fucking deal. So now it's Deleware's blood in their system."

"Castle," she gasped, the world tilting. She sank back against her dresser, stared at him. He had just - contaminated evidence, tampered with - fuck. Fuck. He couldn't do that. 

"They'll take him into custody down there, they'll have him processed. It happens. We're trained not to resist on American soil. Looks badly if a CIA agent starts kung-fu-karate-chopping all over the place. He'll be taken in."

"Castle."

"But when he does, this time the CIA won't issue some quiet release order, hush-hush, behind closed doors, down from on high. This time, the NYPD gets wind of the blood match to that plane, they see the dog bite and how he's injured and bleeding, and Deleware ain't going nowhere."

"You just - orchestrated all this," she rasped. Had to close her eyes. "You didn't even ask me. You fucked around with my case, my precinct, my fucking city, Richard Castle. And Deleware won't forget. He won't fucking forget what I did to get back at him, using my resources, my NYPD, and you think that will get him off my tail?"

Castle opened his mouth to fight her back, but she saw the moment it hit him. He was still thinking of Deleware like the pencil pusher, the desk jockey, not like the Special Forces bastard who had followed her silently and without breaking a sweat, whispered what he wanted to do to her, cuffed her in the side of the face.

"He won't touch you again," Castle said then, his eyes growing still. Deadly. In that moment, she saw more violence in him than in Deleware.

But she wasn't afraid. None of that terror even touched her. 

It was entirely the opposite. A sickly heavy satisfaction stole over her like a weight, kept her hidden, kept her safe. And that scared her.

"What do you know?" she spat, jerking away from him. "You won't be here when he comes for me anyway. Threaten all you like, fuck up his life, whatever, but don't think it won't come right back on me, you fucking asshole."

She stalked down the hallway and into the bathroom again, slammed the door shut, flipped the lock.

And then she sank down on the toilet seat and struggled not to cry.

It hurt too much. Her face was killing her.

\-----

He didn’t follow immediately. No, first he finished getting her ice, then he found a hair clip and popped the spring and wire free to use as a makeshift tool.

He picked the lock in two seconds and came into the bathroom after her, dropping the hair clip into the sink before falling to his knees in front of her. She made to roll her eyes and winced instead, and he laid his palm on her thigh, lifted the ice pack to her face. She grunted when it touched her eyebrow, but her eyes slipped shut.

"You're right," he said quietly, mindful of the way his voice echoed on the bathroom tile. "I won't be here. But Kate, love, he won't be alive to hurt you after I get my hands on him."

Her eyes slid open. She didn't stare so much as watch him. Watching for what?

For the moment he turned into Deleware? A man she thought she knew, only to find out there was something so much darker and more sinister...

He didn't have that, whatever it was that had terrified her, and they both knew it. Why they could do what they did, because at the back of it he was always in love with her.

He put her wellbeing above his own.

Always.

He leaned in and softly kissed the edge of her eyebrow, away from the ice, trailed his mouth down her nose and to her lips. They parted with her breath and he touched his tongue to her mouth, slipped inside just as she came alive for him.

Her mouth opened, her tongue taking his, stroking, her breath catching and skirting between them. He cradled her face with the ice pack, his thumb stabilizing her chin, and she moaned into his kiss, surging into him. He took her into his lap, held her against him, ice falling to the floor. She twined her legs around his waist and rocked her hips, and he pressed his hand into her back, dragging her closer, tighter.

She moaned his name and her breathlessness reminded him, brought it back into focus. He cupped the back of her neck and slid his other hand around to her chest, pressed her away so she sat against his raised knees.

Her smudged mouth sighed, her eyes opened.

"Come to bed," he husked. "Softer there. And bring the ice."

"Yes," she whispered. Her eyes were as huge as the sky, dark and open, but he could still see the terror back there, lurking. He would drive it out of her; he would make it up to her, all that darkness, the betrayal of his own people, time and again.

He would tell Eastman about her, about how serious it was, about what Deleware had done. And then he would get rid of Del.

No one touched Kate.

\-----

Her body rose up, a shudder running through her as his hands stroked up her belly. Her eyes opened, saw the flicker of headlights across the ceiling, how the light fell away again and left them in darkness.

She could feel him moving inside her.

His palms were warm over her breasts, massaging as he laid her flat on the bed. She circled her fingers around his wrists to hold on, her legs twined around his waist, meeting his slow, lazy thrusts.

“You’re so beautiful,” he husked.

“It’s dark,” she whispered. “You can’t even see me.”

“I see what matters.”

She bit her lip as his cock pushed deep, groaned as he withdrew. Her stomach tensed as his arms braced against her; the next thrust bottomed out, making them both groan.

“So good,” he rasped. The silk in his voice slid over her nipples, his tone making her shiver. She squeezed his wrists and found his hands, laced their fingers together and pushed back against him.

She didn’t get far. He pressed back, leaning in, his chest skimming her breasts. He was kneeling on the floor, her body spread out over the bed, and he just kept pushing deep, going so deep inside her, his ass taut under her heels.

Her hands were pressed into the mattress near her shoulders, his fingers untangling and then dragging down the insides of her arms to her breasts. One of his thighs came up and supported her ass as he withdrew.

Wet and shivering, the heat of them radiating from her sex to his, and she glanced down the length of her own body to see.

His cock was slick with her arousal and straining hard for her; he was holding himself back. She lifted up, trying to reach for him, but he held her down with a strong forearm across her hips.

He stroked hard and she whimpered, felt it in the back of her throat, felt him filling her up and kneading her inside. Cock pulsing. She tightened her legs around him and lifted her hips to meet him, only to have him press her back down, down so far, choking with the feel of him.

His hands massaged her breasts and then came up to ghost her neck.

“Oh,” she whispered. Tears blurred her eyes and she opened them wider to keep from letting it go. “Castle. Touch - touch me.”

“No one else can touch you,” he husked. His hands spread and squeezed her breasts, came down slowly to her belly, pressing hard into her abs.

He thrust and she could feel the stroke of his cock against her front wall, crushed under the heels of his hands. She moaned and felt it falling over her, a cascade over her body, her orgasm unfurling and shaking her very bones.

Castle stroked through it, his rhythm unfaltering, steady, not hurried, slowing down even as her starburst began to fade.

When she lifted her hands to touch him, she was trembling.

Castle was staring down at her from between her spread thighs, his body held so carefully away, and she felt the tears spill over and coast back to her ears, soaked up by her hair.

“Come ‘ere,” she husked. “Come down here with me, you’re too far away.”

Castle slid out of her body and stood. He was so immense, broad-chested and tall, and she stared up at him, wanting so much.

He came down with her on the bed, his arm looping low over her belly and turning her, pressing his chest to her back. She shifted her top leg back over his thigh and reached down, found the hard, thick head of his cock. He moaned at her ear, arm tightening around her ribs.

“Kate,” he groaned.

She bathed him with her sex, wriggled her hips. “Help me.”

Castle groaned and tilted his hips; his cock slid home at an awkward, sharp angle that made her breath catch.

“Good?” he rasped.

“Rick-”

“Yeah, baby, hang on.”

His arm tightened around her ribs but he went up on one elbow behind her, his chest draped over her back and side, and then he began to thrust.

She felt it coming then, tightening up, impossibly intense, making her grind her teeth. 

Castle laid over her, his mouth touching her shoulder, her neck, sucking, his breathing harsh at her ear, his body working, cock forcing its way deep.

She clutched his arm and reached back for him, got a grip of his hair, the back of his neck, felt like she was being speared with every thrust. Castle grunted something dark and beautiful in her neck and his teeth sank into her tendon.

“Please,” she groaned.

She could feel the slap of his thighs behind hers, her ass working back into the tight space of his pelvis. His fingers were bruising, her ribs ached under his arm, her head pounded with every frantic beat of her heart.

His mouth came to her eyebrow and he kissed the swollen place, slowly touched his tongue to the heat of her split skin.

“What you do for me,” he husked. “I’ve never had anyone, anyone who ever did for me like you.”

She cried out with her orgasm, shimmering and bursting apart, her climax so intense she felt only the moment he came with her, like when a thunderstorm breaks, before she was swept away with it.

\-----

They both laid in the darkness, skin refusing to cool, breath coming easier, hearts thumping. She understood, suddenly, why people needed a cigarette. Something cool and smoky to fill up with after a thing like that, after that kind of pressure and release, that degree of intimacy.

She’d had sex before, but never like this. 

She wouldn’t turn into him first. She wasn’t cuddling him. She was going to gulp in air and watch the lights on the ceiling and drift.

Castle let out a longer breath and rolled right into her, settling at her side without even a comment. Her arm had been in the way of his roll, and so he wasn’t plastered against her like he sometimes did, just close, her forearm pressed to his ribs.

She felt his mouth land at her shoulder, the humid exhalation, and right when she thought she’d say something, anything, to explain how good that had been, the room was bathed in blue light.

“They’re back?” she whispered.

He grunted but it wasn’t an answer. When she’d hunched on the toilet lid and rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes to keep from crying in frustration, the police cars had eventually left. And she’d hoped-

A knock on her door.

“Fuck,” she cursed.

Castle actually laughed. She smacked his shoulder and he chuckled harder.

“I hate you,” she hissed, trying to untangle from him. “That’s the fucking police, you asshole. You did that.”

“Just tell them what happened.”

“I’m not telling them I couldn’t handle a-”

“Tell them-”

“Shut up,” she growled. He was making it difficult on her and she was naked here and the knock came again. She kneed him off of her finally and stumbled to the bureau for underwear, skimmed it up her legs while he watched from the bed.

“Just tell them that he was downstairs waiting on you when you went for a run.”

“You just - just shut up,” she muttered, shimmying into yoga pants. “And you stay back here. You hear me? Do not make a sound.”

He was naked too, of course, and he lifted an eyebrow and gestured towards himself. She turned her back on him so he wouldn’t see the blush, found her sports bra to tug it on. Then the oversized purple t-shirt she usually wore to bed and at least she was decent.

She hustled out of the bedroom and nearly tripped over the dog, anxious in the hallway. She patted the top of his head even as the knock came on the door again, rapping harder.

“I’m coming, you impatient ass.” She slipped the chain, putting her eye to the peephole as her hand went for the deadbolt.

Oh, hell.

It was her Captain.

She hurriedly opened up, apologies on her lips before she even got face to face.

He glanced at her, hardness in his face. “Detective Beckett.”

She stared at him, washed clean with wordlessness, and he shifted towards her.

“May I come in?”

“I - sir - I-”

“Thank you, Detective.” Captain Montgomery strolled into her foyer and stood there, looking around, definitely scoping out her place. She scooted back to gesture for the couch, chair, something, and Montgomery declined the invitation with a raised hand. “Not needed. This should be fast. I came personally because I’ve taken an interest in you. I don’t want to see you get caught up in something unsavory.”

“Unsavory?”

“It doesn’t look good for you right now, Detective. I came hoping to get the straight story, see if we can’t fix this.”

“Fix... this?”

“A man was arrested at your building tonight, Detective.”

“I saw the lights,” she answered honestly, thickness in her throat.

“We had an anonymous call. A man said a woman being attacked.” And now Montgomery was thoroughly looking her up and down, eyes narrowed. “I see now.”

She froze. The bruises, the swollen face. Fucking hell, she had actually forgotten. “You - see, sir?”

“You’ve been following up on this case while you were suspended, Detective Beckett.”

Her mouth dropped open.

“You know that’s in violation of your suspension.”

“Sir,” she said faintly. “I wasn’t-”

“You have this uncanny ability to get into trouble, Detective. You cannot be chasing down suspects through this city with no back-up. No weapon. No badge. No wonder trouble followed you home. What really happened here tonight, Beckett?”

Trouble really had followed her home one night, but it hadn’t been Deleware. It had been Agent Richard Castle.

Only she couldn’t very well say that.

“I was... it’s not what you think,” she said. “He was outside when I went for a run.” How stupid to be reciting Castle’s tired lines.

“She was with me.”

Kate froze, horror washing through her at his voice. Montgomery lifted an eyebrow and looked straight past her - towards the bedroom where Castle had no doubt come from.

She finally got the courage to turn and look, and at least he was dressed.

Montgomery cleared his throat. “Detective?”

“I was-”

“She wasn’t out chasing after suspects,” Castle said smoothly. “I just got home on leave, and believe me - we weren’t out.”

She was going to kill him.

“Detective?”

“I - yes, sir,” she husked, closing her eyes. “We weren’t out.”

“This whole time,” Captain Montgomery said slowly, narrowing his eyes at her and then shifting his gaze back to Castle. “Don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Roy Montgomery. Beckett’s boss’s boss.”

Castle stepped forward, hand outstretched, right hand - not the injured one. He was wearing one her NYPD sweatshirts, so the sleeves fell down over his wrist. “Nice to meet you formally. I’m Rick Castle. Heard a lot about you from my girlfriend.”

He released the Captain and then his arm snaked around her shoulders, tugged. She shrugged him off and stepped out of his range, shooting him a withering look.

“Is that how it is?” Montgomery said. “Well, soldier, good to meet you as well. Detective Beckett.” He crooked a finger at her.

She followed him back to her door where he opened it himself. But he lingered there, turning to look first at Castle and then back to her. “You were with him, you don’t want to get him in trouble with the Army. I see how it is, and I understand your instincts. But you need to come up with a statement, Detective Beckett, just in case this man finally does give us his version of events. You hear me?”

“He’s not - talking, sir?” she said, her awareness of Castle - CIA Agent Castle - so acute that her heart was frantic in her chest.

“He’s not said a word. We ran his fingerprints and we got all kinds of outstanding warrants on this guy. We’re holding him for now, but I figured I needed to come talk to you. No more investigating cases on your own time - and definitely not while you’re suspended, Detective.”

“Yes, sir.”

She closed the door after him and then turned and sank back against it.

Hell.

\-----

"What the fuck are you thinking, your girlfriend, you utter and complete bastard?"

He grinned and circled the coffee table, stalling for time to make his case. "You needed a plausible cover-"

"I do not need you sticking your nose-"

"And wouldn't it give your Captain a better impression if it's something stable, Beckett? Rather than some random guy in your bed and you with your face looking like that?"

She stopped, breathing hard and infuriated, clenching her fists, eyeing him like she wanted to absolutely skewer him. It was so totally fucking hot that he was tenting his sweatpants. 

"You know I'm right. Plus he thinks you were out there anyway, but now with me as your back-up. I gave him just enough to feel satisfied - I'm Army so I can handle myself, I'm qualified to back you up, and I know what shit not to say."

She wanted to absolutely murder him. He was suddenly understanding so very clearly why guys liked to be whipped by their women, why it turned them on so much. He wanted her to fucking launch herself at him; he wanted her body battering his.

Punish him. His fault, all of this, and if he took her blows, it wasn't submission, wasn't degradation, it was sanctification. Salvation.

Kate Beckett was his religion.

"You look good at review time," he added. "You look emotionally stable. They want you to see a shrink, baby, then give them some signs that you're working on it."

Punish me.

She flew at him. Her palm struck him first, stinging across the face - she'd meant it, he had hurt her, surprised her, with that comment - and then her self-defense instincts kicked in, swiping her leg behind his knee and making him buckle. He crashed to the floor and dragged her down with him, rolled to put himself on top.

Beckett heaved upwards, bucking; he slammed her back down. She writhed under him, got her legs tangled in his, used it to her advantage, scissoring and flipping them, twisting his knee so that agony skittered along his kneecap. She put her own knees into his chest and lifted up, hot spikes in his lungs and cracking his ribs, and he swung his arm around her shoulders and pulled her back down against him.

He gripped her ass and put his mouth to her neck, biting. "Girlfriend. And I'm just a Marine Devil Dog, so you tell him, next time you see him, that calling a Marine soldier is a grievous insult."

"Fucking soldier," she hissed.

"Tell him," he growled, biting her jaw and grinding at the bone. She yelped and bucked her hips under him, and he sucked on her skin until he tasted the copper of her blood. "Tell him. Sell the cover."

"I hate you," she hissed, but she had wrenched his neck and was attacking his throat with her teeth. Her hand came between them and went straight for his family jewels, torquing in a way both disastrous and amazing.

"You just hate I'm always - fuck - always right," he moaned. She was killing him. It was so good. She was going to beat him within an inch of his life and he was going to love it and adore her for it and when the hell had this become what he craved?

She flipped them again and came out on top, triumphant and moon-shining, hair gloriously tangled around her face. She got a fistful of his shirt, so fierce with that swollen eyebrow and the bruise mottling one side, like a woman who never backed down, gave better than she got, put the screws to anyone who crossed her.

He was so in love with her. He used to think they'd started in violence and that he was always trying to inject a little tenderness, but the truth was they'd started in tenderness and found a place where violence was love as well.

She leaned down over him, rubbed her body harshly against his, and then pushed her hand down his sweatpants.

"I'm going to make you pay for that."

\-----


	16. Chapter 16

Castle stared at her, watching Beckett as she stalked back to the living room where he was standing - tied.

Leather cord bound his wrists behind his back, and when she had dragged the wooden chair to the middle of the floor, she stopped before him and pushed her fingers on his bare chest.

“Sit.”

He sat, dropping like a stone, forgetting himself, body feeling thick and heavy as he watched her. Those dark eyes. Swallowed up all the light, swallowed him. She was blatantly admiring his cock. Stark naked, arms tied behind his back in a leather thong, thighs spread wide over the cold, hard wood of the seat, Castle felt raw and eroticized, on display for her.

His cock rose the longer she studied him, lifted to meet her gaze, proud, haughty, turbulent arousal churning in his guts. 

She hadn’t muzzled him, but he felt the implication there anyway. He said nothing, kept his mouth shut, let her wield her blazing control.

She was wearing only that over-large purple shirt, hem hanging to mid-thigh and offering him tantalizing glimpses of her lithe legs. Svelte and lean and tigress. 

Beckett lifted her hand and his body seized in anticipation, but she moved to tuck her hair behind her ear, lips parting softly. He could see the shallow dip of her chest as she breathed, nipples puckered below the shirt.

Her fingers traced her jawline to her lips, circled around and around, rubbing the tips of her fingers over her own mouth as she watched him. His cock was throbbing under her gaze. He had to fight the urge to stand and hip check her back against the wall, grind his stiff erection against her belly until he came across that violent purple shirt.

“Move it or lose it,” he growled. 

“You’re not to talk,” she husked, eyebrow raising. Her voice held a lilt to it he hadn’t heard before, faint touches of Eastern European to her vowels, as if she were dropping into another character entirely.

He was going to come.

Fuck. Suddenly, without any prelude, he was laboring for breath and struggling to keep his fucking seed inside his damn cock. His thighs twitched, muscles going taut, and Castle bowed his head, gritting his teeth as he fought for control.

“Look at me.”

He groaned and lifted his chin, found her eyes devouring him.

Castle shouted as his cock pulsed, hot come spilling out of him, fountaining up and landing in ropes over his own thighs. He couldn’t stop the lift of his hips humping the air, dropped his head back against the chair, groaning as he panted through the last of his ferocious orgasm.

When it was done, his cock half-hard and trembling, his eyes closed just so he could breathe, he suddenly felt the light trail of her fingers across his forehead.

He opened his eyes. She was standing over him, purple shirt slipping off one shoulder, hair brushing her neck as she leaned in. When she saw his eyes were open, she skimmed her fingers down the side of his face.

He groaned when he realized she was spreading his come over his skin. And then she leaned in and touched her tongue to that cool trail, suckled at his cheek, teeth scraping for the last of it.

“Beckett,” he begged.

“Be. Quiet,” she hissed. Her teeth nipped his cheek and came down to the hard-swallow of his throat. Her words came against his adam’s apple, making him quiver. “You do too much talking, Richard. You keep getting us both in trouble. This is penance.”

He heard himself whimpering, felt the cotton of her shirt brushing his aching body, sliding over his chest, teasing his crotch with the drape of material. Her hands cupped his face, fingers dancing at his cheeks, inside his ears, thumbs dipping into his mouth, invading him. 

His body was stretched tight with wanting her.

Kate lowered her head and breathed out against his neck, licked studiously at the dip of his collarbone, and then covered his nipple with her mouth.

He shouted, hips canting up, his cock thickening and rising again. She sucked and nipped, stroked her tongue in circles around him, bit at his nipple like she was nibbling at a dessert. His ass rattled in the chair, sweat sticking him to the wood, his knees lifting so he could slam his feet back on the ground and push upwards for her.

She backed away and he dropped down heavily into the chair, panting, his eyes rolling back to her.

“Do I need to tie your ankles to the legs of the chair, Rick Castle?”

He gulped for breath, tried to formulate a response, tried to find words at all, but she shook her head, her hand coming to his chin and gripping hard. 

“You stay. Feet on the floor.”

He sucked down another breath and nodded haphazardly, feeling like he was scrambling to keep up with her. 

Kate skimmed her fingers over his shoulders and he flexed in impatience, need, a flare of urgency rising in him that made him want to fill her touch somehow. Fill her. He wanted so badly to thrust his hips, thrust his cock up inside her.

She slid her touch around, stepped behind him, and then trailed down his left arm to his wrist.

She’d bound him with the leather cord by wrapping it around and around his forearms, avoiding the recently healed wound entirely. He could feel her tracing the bulky scar and he flinched, every circle of her fingernail seemed like it was a circle around the head of his cock, like they were directly linked.

He groaned and writhed back in the wooden seat, gritting his teeth, needing more. So soon, so fiercely, and he’d be damned if she made him come into the empty air again.

Her mouth at least. Her fucking hand would be better than losing it.

He was having a fucking hard time holding it in though. He wanted to push her down on the couch, fall hard over her and fuck her. With both hands tied behind his back like it was some kind of macho bullshit challenge.

From behind him, Kate leaned in against his back, hands sliding over his shoulders to wrap her arms around him, embracing him. He let out a ragged sigh of relief only to jerk nearly out of his seat when she scratched his nipples with both hands.

“Fuck!”

She sank her teeth into his neck and growled, pressing her thumbs against the raw nerves of his nipples, pressing hard. “You. Keep. Talking.” Her mouth moved up to his ear, breath achingly erotic against his jaw. “You should shut up now, Rick. If you want inside me at all.”

He moaned, dropped his head back against her, rocking the chair with the force of his frustration. She scratched lightly at his pecs, over his nipples in erratic flicks of her nails, and he felt his hips writhing in the seat.

He was going to come. Fucking hell, no. No. He couldn’t possibly.

No.

Castle yelped when her thumb nail caught his nipple, hips jerking, and something of his desperation must have showed, because she was suddenly sliding across his lap and opening her thighs over him.

He moaned and dropped his chin, staring at the dark shadows between them, the drape of her purple shirt. Her hands came to his shoulders for balance, and she lifted up, pressing her pelvis against his chest and sliding down, shirt rucking up.

She hovered just above the strain of his cock for her, humid wonderful heat teasing him, her upper body arched back so that he could see the curve of her breasts and the sharp points of her nipples under the shirt. She was biting her bottom lip and watching him intently, hair falling back over her shoulders, hanging on to him.

And then she undulated against his abs, a perfect grind that must have gotten her clit just right because she moaned and dropped her head back. He could feel her arousal soaking her shirt, the wetness against his skin, and he couldn’t help himself.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he rasped, watching her. “Damn. Kate Beckett. You are the most amazing creature I’ve ever seen. Don’t stop, baby. There you go, grind it out, love. You know you love how that feels between your legs, how hot it is, how fucking erotic to get yourself off against me with your clothes on.”

She had her eyes closed. She was grinding against his upper abs, holding herself stiffly high, avoiding his cock and making him ache for her.

“Oh, please, Kate. Come on, love. Come for me. Come against me. I can’t even touch you. All I can do is watch, watch your gorgeous throat working as you moan, watch you bite your bottom lip, the flutter of your lashes-”

She cried out and snapped upright, pressing herself so hard against him that his face was buried in that purple at her breasts. She shook with the strength of her orgasm, giving him enough space only to open his mouth and tongue her nipple through her shirt, making her wet.

\-----

Her hands cupped his face and tugged, and so Castle released her nipple, blinking up at her. She eased off of his lap, leaving him bereft, bare-ass naked in the chair with an erection the size of a redwood.

She smirked.

Castle narrowed his eyes at her and she skimmed her fingers down her shirt, took the hem delicately, began to lift.

“Fuck, yes,” he growled.

She dropped the purple back to her thighs, lifted an eyebrow.

“Sorry,” he gasped, clamped his lips shut, pleading with his eyes.

Beckett regarded him as if she was thinking about it, still undecided whether or not she was going to reward him. She lowered her hands to the hem once more and he sat up straighter, eyes fixed on that dark line across her legs.

She pulled the material taut across her thighs and he groaned, noticing for the first time that stain of arousal where her shirt had been pressed between her legs.

“Fuck me,” he rasped, closing his eyes a moment, unable to help it.

When he opened them again, she was gliding the shirt off over her head.

“Hell,” he whispered.

Her breasts were high and heavy, nipples so achingly tight that his mouth opened for them. She lowered her arms and her breasts shifted, bobbing, his cock following the same motion. Beckett brought her hands in and cupped her breasts, humming low in her throat when she touched herself.

He opened his mouth to say something, urge her on, but Kate paused, slim eyebrow lifting oh-so-slightly.

He froze.

She teased her nipples and took one step closer, knee angular and pointing towards him, thigh coasting up to the hair curled tightly between her legs. She was goddess gorgeous but mottled with bruises as purple as her shirt, livid and dangerous. He wanted to touch his mouth to every mark, suck on her skin until she felt as wild as he did.

Beckett flattened her breasts with her palms, took in a shuddering breath that made his cock pulse. She stepped closer, watching him, and the silence was beginning to tighten around him like a band, stealing his breath, choking his erection.

Beckett dropped to her knees in front of him, leaning suddenly against his shins as if it were the most casual thing in the world, her breasts touching him, brushing, pressing, teasing.

“You know the best part?” she murmured, like this was just a conversation she was picking up. 

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t, physically couldn’t make words work.

She put her elbow into the top of his thigh, leaned her head against her hand, the ends of her hair touching his leg, trailing over his aching cock. She used her free hand to trace a line up his other leg, brushing through the light sprinkle of hair to the crease of his thigh. His erection was so stiff it actually hurt.

His cock was causing him physical pain, that tease of hair and fingers.

“The best part,” she delayed. “Doing exactly as I want with you. Knowing. The whole time. You could break free in a second and grab hold of me, slam me back against the wall-”

He grunted.

“-and fuck me.”

“Fuck,” he rasped. “Fuck, Kate. Please. Please, just-”

She lowered her mouth to his cock and swallowed him.

\-----

When she felt his cock hit the back of her throat and heard that agonized little twist in his voice as he shouted her name, she reached up and squeezed the base of him, stalling him out.

Beckett had seen him do it to himself before, a hundred times, especially when he was deep inside her and wanted to fuck her hard, wanted to make her come one more one more. She had learned the trick from him and he was moaning now, gulping breaths that wouldn’t seem to come and shifting on the seat like she was killing him.

But she wanted to take his cock in her mouth and work him a little longer, taste and girth, the heavy press down on her tongue. She wanted to push him as far as he would go, wanted to press her face to his crotch and feel the kinky hair tangle with her eyelashes.

It was crude and feral and intensely erotic, and every time she pressed him into the roof of her mouth or maybe her teeth, he made a noise that sounded vital and broken.

She craved this. She needed absolute mastery over him; she wanted to do to him whatever struck her, force his orgasm in places and times he least wanted to give it.

She wanted to say nothing and still have him begging her. She wanted him silent and yet still begging.

She wanted him to wish he could come if only to make it never stop.

Beckett swallowed against his cock and his hips bucked, responsive and harsh. She hollowed her cheeks and withdrew slowly, feeling him all the way out. When he was wet form her mouth, she pursed her lips and blew cool air across his cock.

Castle cursed her, his thighs tensing and his body heaving in the chair so that it set down had again on two legs, tilting him. Beckett’s hand shot out and slammed him back down, steadying the chair.

He let out a whimpering breath and tilted his head back, apparently unable to even look at her, and she could feel his heart racing in his cock against her cheek.

So Beckett turned back to him, licked the side of his shaft up to his head, swallowed him again. Her fingers were pumping the base of his erection, giving him some relief and then taking it away again, driving him crazy. Castle kept bucking his hips up against her, forcing his cock a little deeper or bumping her teeth, the back of her throat.

Beckett licked and sucked, ran her tongue over his head and down again, nipped the skin where it wasn’t loose enough to bite. He was groaning between his teeth now, constant, unceasing sounds, his thighs trembling under her arms where she was braced, his feet restless and knocking against her thighs.

She felt the moment he lost the last edge of his control.

Castle roared her name and began to mindlessly thrust, so quick and sharp that she pulled back, letting go of him, and yet he still jerked in the air. Beckett clambered up his body and twined her legs around his hips and then the back of the chair, pinning them both.

Castle uttered a long, frustrated yell, his eyes flaring open, and she saw in that moment how he wanted to rip free and grab her, impale her with himself.

So she did it first.

Beckett rose up, and sank right back down, forcing his cock home.

Castle cried, a broken sound in his chest and tears leaking from the corner of his squeezed tight eyes even as he began to thrust. His movements snapped but stayed deep, his mouth open as he gasped for breath, and she let him, let him, for just a moment longer, simply rode the fury of his need while he was bound.

And then Kate took hold of him, gripping his jaw in her hands and forcing his head down to her. “Look at me.”

His eyes rolled even as his lids staggered open; he was breathing so hard he was mewling on every exhale, needy, wild noises. 

“Look at me,” she repeated.

His eyes met hers, something so very uncontained, primitive, that she leaned in and claimed his mouth, sucking on him, forcing him to take her tongue, her kiss, everything.

She found herself in a moment, began moving her hips against him, rocking, rocking. She set the pace, punishing in its slow wave, her breasts hitting his chest with every downstroke. Castle was finding his breath again, chanting her name in tight, fierce syllables, and then he ground his teeth down on a curse.

“I can’t - I can’t-” he gasped at her.

“Lose it. Lose it. I want you to.”

“Can’t-”

“Fucking come for me, Rick Castle.”

He shouted and jismed inside her, spasms of come that shot off and leaked out around his cock, cords of muscle standing out under his skin as his orgasm went on and on. She rode him still, relishing the slick stickiness and mess, a perverse pleasure burning through her guts as she felt him lose it.

When he was done, she slid all the way down to his base, his cock twitching and pulsing in her body. She ran her hands up and down his arms and chest, pressing her face against his neck to keep control of herself, not let it go, not give in.

Castle was trying to clear his throat, find his voice again she knew, but he was still too stunned; his head shook against the top of hers and she finally sat back.

She couldn’t help the groan that escaped her lips when it shifted his cock deeper, the penetration at this angle like heaven.

Still she maneuvered carefully, drawing one knee up tight to her chest and lifting her foot, dragging it just under his neck as she turned on his lap. Turned literally on his cock until she had her back to his chest and his angle was deep and wicked and choking.

Beckett leaned forward and moaned with the feel of him inside her, hardening now, thickening again, viciously swollen. She pressed her hands to his knees and lifted up, teasing them both before she sank back down.

Castle leaned in and draped himself over her back, his breath hot at her shoulder blade, whimpering noises vibrating in his chest. 

She did all the work, rising and falling, rising and falling, ramping up the intensity as she amped the angle, grinding and dragging, twisting and tilting. Castle was heavy at her back and making her breasts swing forward; she gritted her teeth because she wanted him biting her nipples.

His breath at her back, his wet tongue, the deep fullness of his cock inside her, the work of her body up and down over his lap, the swing and sway of her breasts-

Her orgasm tore through her like lightning, a screaming ripping from her throat, body curling in and then arching hard out.

\-----


	17. Chapter 17

He roused when his arms loosened and fell, felt only Kate, Kate, and drew his arms around her, hanging on.

His shoulders ached, his body ached, his heart ached and he tightened his grip even as he fell out of the chair, dragging her with him. Ungraceful and haphazard a fall, so that his knee hit first and then his shoulder knocked into the coffee table ottoman and he just huddled there. 

She was shifting as if to move and he gripped her harder, drew his knees up to keep her there, burying his face into the soft fall of her hair and the slope of her neck just to breathe. He couldn't let go, he couldn't bear it if she moved away; she couldn't leave him now, he couldn't be alone and without her. He couldn't.

He heard her saying his name, he heard it but it didn't penetrate, his name and the feel of her voice in his arms. He just wound his arm tighter and listened, his own voice clotting in his throat and accreting so that no sound at all could even start. 

He realized he had made fists of his hands and he was embracing her so hard that she was squirming in his lap, her own knees pulled up, but he couldn't release. Couldn't. 

"Rick," he heard then. "Rick, love." A breath, a heartbeat, a waiting that was patient. "Okay, okay. Rick."

Her fingers were combing through his hair and lightly tracing his neck. He felt his skin again, felt the edges of his own body begin to form once more, still fluid as if it might collapse at any moment. He was boundary-less but acquiring borders, new things, feeling her separate from him but part of him.

"Rick, it's okay. It's okay, love. Just take your time."

Time. What time was even there. He had fingers now, they were in fists at her spine, her ribs, digging too hard. He flattened his palms against her skin, but it was still his skin, still sinking into one flesh, no limits, no line between them; she was him, his body, he was filling in the lines again and his fingers dragged up her spine and buried in the hair at her nape.

She shivered.

"It's okay," she husked in his ear. "Stay right here. I'll stay. I'm not going anywhere. Breathe, honey."

He gasped and realized he hadn't been breathing, took another one that shuddered down into his lungs and out again. Gulping now, his head clearing, he felt the groan dragged out of his chest and from his throat.

She was still petting his hair, but now she pressed her mouth to his temple, the high slope of his cheek, her cool lips, the wet cool air of her breath. He had the faint impression of pattern and realized she might have been touching him for a while.

"It's okay, you're okay."

"Kate," cracked out of his mouth.

"Yeah, love. I got you. You're okay. Can you let me see your arm now?"

What? She was crooning in his ear and he felt the edges of his senses focus again, lines made where there had been none, her body and his and the places where they were still together. She stroked along his ear, curling and softening, and her lips dragged over his eyebrow.

"Let me see it," she murmured. "I won't touch it."

"Kate."

"I know, I know. It's okay. I want to be sure, love. I think you're bleeding. Someone's bleeding anyway."

He grunted and tried to move but nothing was working, his muscles were rubberbands without the forgiving elastic, loose and limp. Her hand came down to his shoulder, kneading and pulling, and then he realized she had his arm between them.

She was trying to get out - she was moving away, leaving him. He couldn't-

"Oh, love. Okay, okay, it's okay. I just need to stop the bleeding. Let me get-"

"No," he choked, turned his head so that his face was pressed tightly to the skin of her neck and collarbones. "No, no. Kate."

"I need to get gauze or band-aids or something, sweetheart. You're bleeding all over my rug."

He whined and drew in, trapping her against him, still slung half over the ottoman coffee table and then something like pain nicked at the edges of his mind.

"Castle. Come on, sweetheart. Castle. Okay, you're being-"

"Kate," he croaked, and then his voice cracked. He shook his head against her, cleared his throat to try again. "It'll stop. Fine in - fine in a second."

"Rick?"

"Promise," he muttered, but it came out a desperate little sound and she was cradling his face, pulling him back to look at him.

"Are you okay?"

He blinked at the gorgeous beauty of her face, her eyes, her regard. 

She loved him. 

She loved him. He could see it. He'd thought, hoped, wanted - craved it so badly sometimes he had thought, when he was in the middle of months away from her, he had thought he'd invented it all. Made it up. And he'd come back and pick the lock she'd changed and strip off all his clothes and attack her the moment she got home, and he'd convince himself it was real.

He didn't need to convince himself anymore.

It was real.

"I'm okay," he husked.

He brought his hands to her face, the wound raw and bleeding down his arm, and he kissed her for all that love she didn't want to have but had anyway.

Kissed her so she wouldn't have to convince herself either.

\-----

He wouldn't let her move away. 

He knew there was something wrong with that, knew it meant he wasn't exactly right, but he did at least let them both get up off the floor. He shuffled up with Beckett still in his lap, ignored her oof of protest and surprise, and deposited them both on the couch. Her cushions were deep and sagging, perfect for this, and he grabbed the blanket from the end and pulled it up over them, lying down with her.

"Castle, your wrist is bleeding."

"It stopped," he husked, burrowing closer.

"What are you doing?" she whispered.

"You gotta give me this," he blurted out. He just had no ability for words, for any of the usual charm or manipulations. He just kept saying the truth. "I can't-"

"Okay, okay," she hushed. Her fingers trapped his lips. He knew she was afraid of what he might say, confess; he was too. He couldn't; he absolutely couldn't keep talking. It would come out, how he loved her, how it carried around inside him, carried him through. If he said it then she'd have to do something about it, or he would, and he didn't know what came next after a thing like that.

He just wanted to bury his face in her body and twine around her and just breathe. He just needed to breathe. If he could get his heart back under control, then it would be fine. It would fade. The fierce and crazy would fade.

"Okay, okay," she whispered. She sounded scared. He didn't mean to scare her; he was scared too. No one had ever done that to him before. Nothing had gotten to him like that. He'd been no one, no identity, and not in the way he had of sliding seamlessly into the covert characters he created for missions. But in the way of knowing only her.

He was terrified. He didn't want to do this. He wasn't built for this; he didn't know how to be - to be any of that. He could play at it, he could fake it really well, but he didn't have that quality or piece that clicked into place. 

"I'm a spy," he husked. "I can't-"

"I know," she whispered. She was cradling his head against her. "I know exactly who you are, Rick."

He shuddered and let out a long breath, body finally beginning to settle. It was still not quite right, still an edge to his breathing that made him wish he could hold her harder, tighter, closer to him.

If he could just - could just - he didn't know. But if he could do it, it would be okay. They'd be okay. He wouldn't hurt her, wouldn't lead bastards to her door and leave them with her, wouldn't be so - he couldn't keep-

"It's just fine," she murmured, stroking her fingers through his hair. "We don't have to ever do that again if you-"

"No!" he blurted out, lifting his head in a panic he didn't understand. "No. I want - it's good." He swallowed and dropped his head back to her chest, ignoring his own better sense to keep clutching at her. "So good, Kate. I've never... no one has ever gotten - that far. I don't understand how - I don't want to stop. Don't stop. Please, don't-"

"Okay, it's okay," she whispered. "Don't try to talk, Rick. We'll just stay right here. You should sleep, love. Okay? Just sleep."

Sounded really good. He really should sleep. He'd never felt exhaustion like this before; it was in his soul. Like it'd been there all along, this bone weariness with life itself, and he'd never known it was there until she stripped him bare and touched her fingers into the deep waters of it.

"You sleep," he got out, his voice mumbled against her skin. She smelled verdant, like earth and summer sun; she smelled like - like - like something that had been torn away from him once, a long time ago, and only now was he getting it back.

Overwhelmed. He was overwhelmed. He'd never had that happen to him before. 

He had to stop thinking about love or he was going to say and then it would all be ruined.

"It's okay, I'm here," she whispered. Her voice at his ear, fingers combing through his hair over and over. "Sleep. You need sleep. You had a pretty traumatic week, sweetheart. Dr King wanted you to go see him, but I don't think you did. It might be a good idea, huh?"

"Yeah," he choked out. "Yeah. Good. Yeah."

"Shh," she hushed. Her words turned to hums and then to just a vibration he felt under him and he was falling asleep.

\-----

Beckett was not one for contentment. Probably not built for it, but life circumstances had never lent itself to the feeling either.

Content.

There was always some other thing - a goal to achieve, a mile marker to reach, a plan’s next step - at least since her mother had been brutally murdered. Her father was a mess and that was high on her to-do list, and she probably could be called a control freak though she just thought of it as preparation.

Be prepared. For life, for trouble, for a guy with a gun, for a man with sad blue eyes and hands that could break you.

She’d always been prepared. She was prepared. The next step was a fixed point before her. When she’d entered the Academy, the requirements were explicitly stated. When she’d started on the police force, the key elements for success in her undertaking hadn’t been quite so perfectly known, but she’d figured it out. There was always something else.

When she’d made it into Vice, distinguishing herself in training to become attached to a department, she hadn’t been content with that. Next was detective, key ingredient in her plan, and when she’d finally made detective this year, she still wasn’t content.

Solve her mother’s murder, get the bastard, see him fall to justice.

Kate Beckett hadn’t known contentment since... the winter woods upstate for Christmas when she was nine. On the back porch with her dad, her mom somewhere inside writing a brief by hand before the fire, she and her father had sat side by side and sipped coffee.

First taste of coffee. Her mother had said it would stunt her growth. Her father had sprinkled cocoa in it with a wink and loudly pronounced that he’d made her some hot chocolate, come outside with me, Katie, let’s sit so still the deer come up from the woods.

Huddled over her mug, not at all cold for once, the thick cableknit sweater that probably had looked a lot like a Cosby castoff, the dark corduroys that had actually matched her father’s own, Kate had sat, barely breathing, waiting for the hoped-for deer.

No deer had ever shown up, despite the salt lick in the back yard. First time in that cabin, so maybe the previous renters had been antagonistic, but the deer hadn’t come that day.

Evening had crept in, swiftly, dark before they’d known it. The stars like faint outposts just over the dark veins of the bare trees.

No deer, but a predator had come, slinking through those narrow trunks. She had first felt her father stiffen beside her, and then she had seen the red-shine eyes herself, just barely, a flicker as the animal’s head had come her way.

Raccoon she had thought. Then fox. Then no. None of those.

Not a wolf, which had been her nine-year-old’s heart-cry. She had been reading Julie of the Wolves, in love with wolves, with the wild, and the cabin-renting for Christmas break had been her father’s idea.

Not a wolf. But something. 

“Coyote,” her father had breathed.

She had watched it, they had both watched it, the slink of its body, the way it looked both hunted and hunter, wary and daring. It had not touched the salt lick; it had seemed to stalk the yard from the perimeter of the trees, maybe waiting for something unsuspecting.

And then it had gone, disappearing so seamlessly into the trees that she and her father hadn’t known it had gone until birds came back to the feeder.

They had stayed out on the backporch steps, now in complete darkness, and she had laid her cheek to the top of her knees, curled over the coffee mug in the vee of her lap, and she had been content.

She had existed and felt no need for other.

After seventeen years of striving, Kate was content again.

It would be only this moment, this hour or night, perhaps it would last until tomorrow, but it was the nature of contentment to be unconcerned with keeping it. She was blanketed by his bare body and comfortable in the heaviness and the warmth of him, the couch, the fleece, the night.

She had broken him open. Maybe she had meant to. Maybe she had been punishing him seriously, in some part of herself, for the way he battered at her - ribs, heart, something in that area - and maybe she had meant to make him feel it.

But with that breaking she had done something to herself too. She had carried something with her that she had found a way to lay down, and she didn’t know when or where or what tomorrow looked like without that burden, seed, thorn - but it was gone.

She would put him back together if he needed it. She had, after all, been the one to disassemble him, like a weapon, handling him deftly and cleaning him out. If he couldn’t get himself oriented, she could.

She had confidence. It might just be the contentment talking, but it was there. It would be available later; something to draw on. It was a strength rather than an aggression, and she’d never seen the difference until tonight.

Castle shuddered beside her and she flattened her palm at his chest, skated up to his neck to curve her fingers around his nape. He made a noise - something instinctual - but it was followed by a grunt, as if he had just heard himself, seen himself.

She didn’t need for him to draw away. She didn’t need for him to speak. 

She needed to sleep uninterrupted. And later, other things, intimate things, release in ways that unknotted her, but now it was fine.

“Kate, I-”

She squeezed his neck and shook her head, drew her other arm up to frame his face with her hands. He moved like he would kiss her but instead his mouth landed open and still-hitched-breathing on her cheek, and then his arms came around her again, squeezing, going through it all over again.

She murmured nonsense against his temple and stroked his cheeks and neck, brushed back the hair from his forehead until he loosened and sank against her.

And then he was finally asleep.

She might sleep too. Or not, dwell here for a moment more, make it last. 

Neither hunted nor hunter. Those moments were rare.

\-----

She was telling him a story about a coyote he thought. He was having trouble processing. He was an overloaded machine, a broken machine; he couldn’t get his sensory systems back online correctly.

She was telling him the woods in the winter are bracing and she was stroking his neck as she spoke and the words pierced him like an arctic wind. She was saying in the summer we’d go back but it wasn’t the same and no lake and that was a mistake. 

She was pulling him up out of sensory darkness, out of the void, by her voice and her fingers, like conjuring a spirit. Had she summoned him?

Was he a demon? Half-souled, waiting for that missing element, wanting to be good but not knowing how.

She’d twist his ear for thinking it. He still thought it.

That he was thinking at all made him realize he was coming back, and he felt now the scratch of material at his shoulder from the edge of the blanket and the way his arm was twisted between their bodies.

He shifted and she clutched at him, as if riding a wave that might get violent, but he found a way to settle on his back with her draped over him. Rather than crushed under him.

She let her arm loosen and lay across his hipbones; he reached down and tugged her knee up, curling his fingers around into that soft skin. 

“You okay?” she murmured. Her lips painted a line across his chest.

“Mm, yeah.”

“You slept for a little while,” she whispered. Her mouth was cool relief; he felt oriented towards every point where they touched, as if she was his due north.

“I did? Oh. Sor-”

“No,” she said, fingers touching his chin as if to stop him. “No. We won’t - nothing has to be explained or forgiven. What we did. I know. You know. No one’s dead. That’s all we need.”

He chuckled, his lungs squeezed tight. He knew. She knew. Maybe she wasn’t consciously talking about the same thing he was, but she knew anyway. It was slipping out now, like she wasn’t thinking about it but it kept rising up. It wasn’t that no one was dead after a session like that.

It wasn’t a session. That was the point. It was because she loved him and she needed - had - to know he had it in him to give it back.

He thought he did. It had scared the shit out of him, in those shaking and untethered moments of raw feeling, it had terrified him because he knew it was so vital a thing, because he knew he - in some ways - didn’t exist without her, but it didn’t scare him now.

He was made for Kate Beckett. Everything else in his life might be suspect and tainted, but not her.

He had been the leading man for so long now, the star of the spy show, that it was a strange relief to be someone else’s sidekick. He wanted to pour everything he was into her, and maybe that wasn’t healthy, and maybe it wasn’t even sustainable, maybe he’d crush her with himself, but tonight had proved that she had the core of steel to take it. 

Take him.

She could take him.

He was teaching her how; she was teaching him. They weren’t there yet, but it would come. It was as natural and inevitable as the sun rising in the morning.

He could rest assured in that.

“You’re entirely too smiley,” she muttered.

He laughed, drew his arm around her in a sloppy hug. “Babe, I just had the most mind-blowing, fantastic sex of my life. You shattered my top ten list - which, by the way, had grown suspiciously Beckett-heavy - but now there is no top ten. No comparison.”

She was grinning now too; he could feel it against his skin. Did she know he could feel her preening?

“Now every round of sex is gonna be my favorite,” he said happily, hugging her harder. “After that, it’s all my favorite.”

“It’s all your favorite? What if we were just fumbling in the dark and hurried and exhausted and fell asleep halfway through?”

“Yeah,” he said, smiling up at the ceiling. Even that picture she painted made him want her. Want her. Not just the too-tired sex. Her. It meant she was there and they were in some kind of routine where that was a thing and they had a bed and he had her. It just meant her.

“Yes?” she cried, swatting his chest. “That’s pathetic.”

“I am. Yeah. You broke me, Beckett. Your fault. I’ll take anything now. Anything.”

She sighed, but it sounded pleased, and she was curling up against him now, practically snuggling in.

He really liked that.  
He’d take anything. It was all a step in the right direction, it was all another moment closer to having - having - having everything.

\-----

He hadn't asked for a time-out, but she was certain he needed one. 

His hand had been practically chopped off with a scimitar, she had just dug the stitches out of his too-fast healing scar, and then whatever the fuck that had been in the needle she'd blithely injected him with...

Yeah, add the most intense, apple-cart-upsetting, knockdown sex of their lives, of course he should take a breather. He should probably sleep for another day, a week; he was constantly going, jumping headlong into another mission, staying up all weekend when he was here, leaving on the next flight out.

He didn't get downtime. He didn't have vacations. Being near-fatally injured was his vacation. 

So she just kept talking.

Beckett didn't talk in bed; there was very little they discussed with their skin pressed together. No words necessary.

But he seemed to think she needed to be - um, sexed? seduced - all the time, and that wasn't true. Okay, it was mostly true, but she could wait. She could listen to his voice in his chest as he laughed and she could tease his stories out of him line by line until he could breathe normally.

"No, I guess not," he was saying.

"No?"

"When would I have ever had the chance?"

"Some of those boarding schools are co-ed. Surely."

He grunted something, his hand spreading out over her shoulder blade and rubbing up and down. "Huh, well. Co-ed here and there until maybe sixth grade. Then strictly military. Boys only."

"No kissing the boys at a military school, huh?" 

He chuckled and his fingers came up to her neck, brushing aside her hair. A thumb dug into her muscle like a lazy massage and she closed her eyes. His voice rumbled under her cheek. "Nah, no kissing. But we pulled practical jokes, pranks, that were vicious and mean and rather homo-erotic now that I think about it."

"Oh?" she laughed.

"We had one called Ultimate Sit-Up. You wrestled a guy down to the ground, duct taped his hands and arms to his body, and then blind-folded him. Two guys held down his feet in sit-up position and then he had to do a sit-up straining against the guys holding him down."

"Kind of brutal, but what's-"

"Since he was blind-folded, what he couldn't see was that one of us had dropped our pants and put our ass right in his trajectory. So the idea was - he'd strain and heave against that resistance, and then we'd all pull off him at the same time, and he'd go flying up into some guy's ass. Or crotch. Depending."

"That is disgusting," she muttered, scratching his chest. "Boys are gross."

"Yeah," he laughed, but it drained away quickly, all his amusement. "Yeah, it was... not always pleasant."

If that wasn't a subtle euphemism, she'd never heard more misery in one man's three words. "Babe, that sounds wretched."

"It wasn't..." He sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, it really - I think it really sucked."

She touched her lips to the soft skin where his arm met his chest. There was hair right there too, at his armpit, and it smelled like deodorant that was working hard, some sweat, a good scent which seemed completely unfair. She smoothed it down with her fingers, tried not to think about him as a kid, miserable, pulling mean school pranks.

"You were the class clown?" she said.

"No. I - well, I think I was for a while. And then I got told. So I kept to myself. Not supposed to leave a mark."

"Leave a mark. Make waves, you mean?"

"No one should remember me."

Something heavy dropped over her heart, like snuffing a candle so the light went out. She felt sick, and she had to press her forehead to his skin and take a breath, try not to - not to think - feel - try not to picture it.

"It's spycraft 101, you know? Train early, train often - that's what he said. It worked. I know exactly what I have to do to blend into any situation, what to wear, how to act, how to talk, what to say. It's second nature. And when I'm gone, people's memories of me are fuzzy, was I even there?, non-descript, some guy."

"You could never be nondescript," she husked, bit the inside of her cheek after it came out. She laid her cheek at his chest again, realized she was cold. "You're too - you're too - you're big, Castle."

That was stupid. That sounded stupid. She-

"Most people don't see my cock, Beckett. That's reserved for you."

She giggled, stunned a little, shocked right out of her self-disgust. She titled her chin to his chest and glared up at him. "I just giggled. That is so not cool. NYPD detectives do not giggle."

"About cocks or just in general?"

"You're terrible."

"No, baby, I'm fucking amazing. That's a word for word quote from you only five hours ago-"

"I really hate you."

"You do it so well."

She grunted and reached up, snagged his ear to twist. But something in his face, some strange adoration, stilled her fingers. She stroked instead, fingers trailing down his jaw.

"You do it so well, yourself," she murmured. 

There was no way he could ever not make waves. Not with her. He was built to rock her world.

Oh, fuck. That sounded stupid too.

\-----


	18. Chapter 18

She had this tension in her shoulders that he’d learned to read meant she was going to move away from him, so Castle acted quickly.

He dragged his hand from the back of her knee to her inside thigh, pressed his fingers between her legs.

Beckett cursed and rocked into his hand, gripped his forearm with another shimmy of her hips. Her teeth were flat to his chest and he could feel her heart accelerate, and now she wasn’t trying to get away. She was grinding into him, jerky movements like she didn’t want to be doing this but she couldn’t help it.

He tightened his arm around her shoulders to press her further into his side and he worked relentlessly at the too-swollen nub of her clit. She was sucking in each breath, gripping his arm and twisting her hips into him, and he realized after a moment that somewhere along the way, he’d lost all the seduction of it.

He went from 0 to 60 with her, and he hadn’t teased her breasts or kissed her thighs, hadn’t rubbed his thumbs into the arches of her feet or slowly stripped her panties off - in ages. She was always wet for him, and he had forgotten why he had always wanted to take his time.

He’d stopped romancing her body.

That was going to change.

Castle shifted and slid his fingers out of her sex, dried them off on her thigh as he skimmed down to her knee. She gulped and released her death-grip on his arm, though she didn’t let go entirely.

“Just - just trying to tease me?” she husked.

“No, babe. Moving you closer. Come here.”

“Wh-”

Castle hauled her up over his chest, her back against his front, her body rangy and lean, her ass nicely curved against his groin. They’d done this a hundred thousand ways, but he couldn’t remember ever quite like this. He’d have to remember this.

For now though, he lifted his torso, and her along with him, draping himself over her. When she’d had him in the chair, he hadn’t been able to touch her at all, had only pressed his body to her spine, felt his soul being dragged out of him by his balls.

But now he was going to touch her, finger her, put his hands where he wanted as he reminded her of what she’d done to him, for him. How she’d broken him down and salvaged the basic elements of his essence for him, shown him the way.

He really loved feeling her against him like this, her ass tight against his cock and thighs. He widened his knees and her legs parted with his, opening him up to her. Her cunt was rosy red and dark; he could feel the humid arousal radiating up to him. 

This was going to be good.

His favorite, of course, was pressing his face between her thighs and holding her down even as she tried to curl up around his head. Like she wanted to keep him close, something precious. Fingers in his hair, mouth and nose filled with the musk and lemon of her.

“What are you doing exactly?” she muttered. He could practically feel her rolling her eyes.

He scooted back against the arm of the couch, her body contained by his. His arms slid around her waist and he pressed his eyes to her shoulder blade, breathed in harshly and back out again, smelling her.

Kate’s back rippled in goose bumps and he felt them come up under his arms. His nipples were abraded from earlier, the chair, and he shifted back and forth to rub against her spine.

“Castle. What - what are you doing?”

“Sometimes I want to rub my whole body against yours.”

“Hell,” she croaked.

“Yeah, torture. When I can’t. But right now...”

“You can,” she finished, sounding faint. She cleared her throat and seemed to rally. “You were draped over me like this in the chair. When I fucked myself with you.”

His cock stiffened at the cheeks of her ass, suffused with blood at just the syntax of her statement. The way she’d said it, the words she’d chosen. When I fucked myself...

With him.

“Yeah,” he rasped, nuzzling into the back of her neck. He found the skin where her shoulder met her nape and he bit softly into her skin. 

“Yeah,” she echoed, but it sounded fuzzier, almost distant. He tilted his head and caught sight of her face: her eyes were closed, her lips parted. She had canted forward with the weight of him against her back and something was ranging behind her eyelids, some inner vision.

“When you fucked yourself on my cock,” he growled, licked at the spot below her ear. “When you fucked yourself on my cock, I couldn’t touch you.”

“Yeah,” she said, like a ghost.

“But I can now.”

“Oh,” she whispered.

“Yes, Kate. Oh.”

He coasted his hands slowly inward from her hips, letting her soft skin feel the callouses on his palms from basic training. She shivered and arched as if to escape, but he closed his arms around her, trapping her.

She sucked in a breath like she might call for help, but there was no help. He scraped his teeth down the back of her neck, along every ridge of her spine, until he met the ends of her hair.

He sucked at her skin, placed open-mouthed kisses at the ladder of her ribs, every step. She hunched inward and her shoulder blade rose to meet his teeth; he got a bite of her bone, kept her from being able to straighten up again.

Kate shifted restlessly.

He rubbed his thumbs along her sides and slowly dragged his hands up to her breasts.

She mewled.

Beautiful sound. He hadn’t heard a mewling from her in months. Mewling was her way of saying she was unraveled.

Castle kneaded her breasts in his hands, perfect weights cupped in his palms. She had little freckles on the sides where sun damage or maybe just genetics had caused the pigment to rise up. He liked to imagine her as an eighteen year old, a college co-ed, sunning herself on the roof of the dorm. Topless.

Castle hummed into her back and widened his thighs a little more, letting one foot down to the floor. She arched and her hips bucked up off the couch, but he squeezed her breasts and brought her down again.

“You were in college at Stanford, weren’t you? A semester.”

“What?” she gasped.

He was avoiding her nipples; it was fascinating to feel her writhe in his grip when she wanted something so badly.

“Fall semester in California, Beckett. Kate. Did you ever lay out in the sun with your friends?”

“Y-yes,” she said, though her stutter felt bewildered.

Castle hummed and scraped his teeth up to her neck, nosing through her hair. Her breasts were suddenly heavier, swollen with arousal, and he settled his elbows at her inside thighs, digging into muscle just enough to remind her of where he was headed in all this.

“Where did you lay out?” he husked, kissing the soft hair at her nape.

“On - on the beach. Everyone did.”

“Doesn’t Palo Alto have a section of nude beach?”

It didn’t. He passed a thumb over her right nipple, bounced over to her skin as he kissed her neck.

“Yes,” she hissed.

“Did you ever go?”

“All the time,” she whispered.

“I bet you still wore your bikini bottoms,” he said, playing out the fantasy. He rubbed both nipples now, making her gasp. “I bet you went with a couple close girlfriends and you bared your breasts to the sun and pretended like it was no big deal.”

“I took my bottoms off,” she husked. “No point in a nude beach if you’re not nude.”

“Fuck.” He groaned into the hair at her nape and opened his mouth, touched his tongue to the working cords in her neck. She was pressing back against him now, trying to urge him on, and he outright began to twist her nipples with his fingers, rough and a little inarticulate.

“It was on the upper peninsula, as they called it. At the Preserve. We would sneak past the rangers and lay out on this tiny strip of beach close to the woods.”

Suddenly he realized she wasn’t lying at all. “Oh, fuck me.”

“And it wasn’t just girls. We had a couple guy friends who started it. Skinny dipping. The three of us girls would lay out nude and feel their eyes on us, feel how much they wanted us.”

“Fucking hell, Kate.”

“We would touch each other sometimes-”

He jerked hard around her, felt his cock aching at the thought of her, young Kate, innocent Kate, fucking cocktease Kate.

“On the arm,” she hummed. “On the shoulder. I would push Dakota’s hair back and very faintly caress her cheek. She would lean in and give me a little kiss on the shoulder.”

“Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. I didn’t see that coming.”

“We didn’t come,” she whispered evilly.

He growled and squeezed her breasts in retaliation, but now all he could picture was Kate Beckett laid out nude on the beach, her fingers trailing over some girl’s arm on her way to her own body, at her belly now, teasing herself, sunglasses on and eyes closed, thinking about it. 

“I’m going to touch you like every boy wanted to touch you,” he husked in her ear.

“None of those boys could have ever dreamed of touching me like you touch me.”

“Damn right,” he growled. His fingers kneaded her breasts and he rubbed hard thumbs into her nipples. “You need someone who knows what the fuck they’re doing.” He caught her nipples with his fingers and cupped her breasts, rolling her hard in his grip.

“You definitely know. Very well. You had - oh, yes - good - good teachers.”

“No, baby,” he growled. “This is all my own work. Research, timing, patience. I watch you when you arch into me, I pay attention to when you catch your breath, I notice the tremors in your belly when you’re shifting close to orgasm.”

“Oh, oh, fuck,” she moaned.

His hands were stroking and kneading, tugging on her nipples and massaging an ache into her that he knew she couldn’t resist. 

“I like to think of you on that beach, the trees crowding your back, the boys swimming naked just beyond your reach, how maybe you wondered just how good that cock would feel pushing inside you.”

“I was - was a virgin. I wondered all the time.”

“Fuck,” he moaned, falling hard over her back. His thighs were shaking like he had run a thousand miles. “Fuck, a virgin at eighteen?”

“Yeah,” she husked. “Tech-technically, yeah.”

“I’d have taken you.”

“Fuck.”

“I’d have done it right. Slowly at first, made you weep with all this.” He skimmed a hand down her belly and traced over her belly button, dipped between her legs to lightly touch her outer lips. “Weep with arousal. You’d be so wet for me.”

“Am - am already.” She was bowed forward now, hair falling down, and he went with her, kept close.

“Make you loose, relaxed, baby. I know it’s your first time, I know I’m bigger than most, but I promise the pain will sharpen to a point and then pop.”

“I liked the pain,” she whispered.

Oh, God. Oh, God, she’d gone and done it after her mother had died, hadn’t she? Newly nineteen and filled with grief and fury, Kate had grabbed some guy and made him fuck her. Hard and fast somewhere. And she’d come out the other side Beckett.

“I’d have been good to you,” he said. “Good to your body. I’d have touched you here, like this.” He pushed his fingers down between her legs and let them slide around. “Made sure you were wet just like this.”

“In the sand? Would you-”

“In the sand. I’d drag myself out of the water and flop down beside you and get you sprinkled with salt sea, and then I’d roll over on my belly and watch you ignore the world. Watch your breasts rise and fall with your breath.”

Kate moaned and jerked her hips in his grasp. He took the hint and began to stroke, teasing folds and sensitive places, pretending he didn’t know them, pretending this was her first.

“I’d have wanted to lay on top of you,” he husked. She groaned and reached up to grip the back of his neck. He kissed her wrist. “Would have wanted to feel you writhing with it as I pushed inside.”

“Oh, fuck, fuck-”

“Under me, thrashing a little, the pain driving you back, making your hips buck from time to time, chasing it, retreating from it, desperate.”

“You’d have touched my breasts.”

“Like this, like I am now.” He worked his fingers between her legs and kept massaging her other breast with his free hand. She was moaning nonstop, take little hiccuping breaths between the moans, and he kept going, feeling good he could do this for her.

“I’d get you nice and ripe and I’d penetrate you a few times, shallow thrusts, testing the waters, so to speak, letting you get used to how big I am, how full you were going to be.”

“You’re huge,” she moaned. “You’re so big, you fill me.”

“I’d take your virginity all at once. A sharp thrust to pop your cherry and make you burn.”

Kate cried out and clutched his arms, body tense and held up, and then she burst into a climax that made her rattle against his chest.

He still had his mouth at her neck and he kissed her, let everything else recede as he wrung the last of her orgasm from her gorgeous body.

\-----

Well.

That was.

Wow.

She felt like it had somehow been her first time, and yet, holy fuck, so very much better. And he’d just touched her. Barely touched her. Words alone had built this intense picture in her head until she was that 18 year old on the beach with her friends, feeling their eyes on her and the heat of the sun between her legs.

“You never laid out nude, did you?” he husked. He was closing her legs and somehow that was the very height of eroticism.

She felt lewd enough to answer honestly. “I did.”

“You did.”

“A handful of times. It was too cold and then really I was - not really into that same group. I found friends with the same interests-”

“Nude beach is not a shared interest?” His fingers trailed up her body, along her breasts. She didn’t think it was possible to come again, but this was a really nice diversion. 

“It was more like - um - cosplay.”

He hummed, nipped behind her ear. “I don’t know what that is, Beckett, but it sounds very dirty.”

She had to bite her bottom lip to keep from laughing. “It’s not. Oh. Oh, well, it is. Sometimes. I don’t think I was one of the dirty ones, Castle, sorry.”

“I can pretend. I have a really excellent imagination. What’s cosplay?”

“Dressing up.” She hadn’t meant for it to sound like that, but it really did.

“Baby, this still sounds dirty.”

She turned her head into him and he kissed her, lips taking, suckling at the corner of her mouth and dipping his tongue inside. She opened to him and lifted into it; he cupped her breast and thumbed her nipple, sparks of fire under her skin.

“You dressed up for your friends? In what?”

“Costumes.”

“Ah, cos-play. Got it. Play?”

“We just - it was a tv show,” she gasped, arching into his hand. He dipped his head and licked her nipple, and she moaned, snaking her arm around his neck to hold him there.

It was an awkward angle, him bent over her back, but he fucking made it work. He always made it work. His hands gentled and stroked, caressed her hips, her thighs, curled and spread her legs so that she was somehow sitting on her heels with her knees apart.

“Perfect. You know what? Next time I have furlough, love, I’m bringing you a costume. Something we can play in.”

Fuck, she really wanted that. Wanted that almost as much as she wanted his hand between her spread legs, where she ached.

“You think they have genie costumes?” he husked. “I wanna see a strip of gauze across your breasts and your belly exposed.”

“I think-” She mewled when he skimmed the backs of his fingers at her inside thighs. “I think you just want to tell me what to do. Have me call you master.”

“I already tell you what to do.”

“I don’t fucking listen,” she growled.

His hands came up and spread her sex open. Kate moaned and dropped her head back to his shoulder, her heels digging hard into her ass. His chin settled at her collarbone so he could see down her body, and he shifted her to lean back a little more, give him a clear line of sight.

“There we are. Oh, look, sweetheart. You’re soaking my hands.”

“Fuck,” she moaned, lifted a hand to her face to hide her eyes. A fucking genie. Call him master.

“What’s your first wish?” he whispered against her neck.

“Not how that works,” she growled.

His fingers teased at her outside folds, a fingernail scratching at the hood of her clit and making her shudder.

“Let me rephrase that. If you could have a wish, my genie slave, what would you wish for?”

“Set free,” she choked out, not thinking, answering the patented line. “Release-”

“That is exactly the right answer,” he rasped. His thumbs spread her sex open wide. “Release is within my power.”

“Oh, fuck.”

Castle arrowed two fingers inside her and she bucked wildly against the invasion, throwing her head back. She twisted, but he was working between her legs with two hands, holding her apart and hooking her cunt, penetrating. 

Kate moaned and turned her head away, chest heaving up, clutching his forearms with her nails digging into his skin.

“You’re so gorgeous, Kate. A force. Sometimes I can’t believe that I can hold you in my hands and wrestle an orgasm out of you.”

“Oh, fuck,” she whispered, twisting her head back into him, pressing against his neck as if it could save her, the pressure of skin to skin. “It’s - it burns. Burns me up. I can’t-”

“I want to thrust my whole hand inside you. I didn’t know that was a thing. Like cosplay. I want to fit my hand in your sex and make a fist around your womb and ring you like bell.”

“A - fuck - fucking sledgehammer,” she moaned. She couldn’t keep this up. She had to come; he had to make her come. He couldn’t keep working her like this. It was going to kill her.

“I could bring you down the way you brought me,” he husked.

She froze.

“Sledgehammer.”

Kate lifted her head, opened her mouth to - to say something, refute him, mock him, command him - but Castle scraped his nail across her clit and she screamed instead, coming violently around his hand so that her back bowed.

He caught her and laid her down to the couch, loomed over her, and when her cunt was still contracting and spasming, Castle pushed his cock inside her.

She groaned, feeling it deep, and he started to move, bearing her down into the couch cushions, bearing her down, weighted with him. She found herself clutching his ass as if to take him deeper, widening her thighs and hooking her calves around those powerful legs as he panted with the effort.

She hadn’t had his cock inside her since the chair.

Beckett shuddered and spilled out into her next orgasm, neatly as that, shaking with it as it echoed around his cock. Castle moaned at her mouth and kissed her, stroked his tongue in and out as he moved. Her breasts began to ache, raw and chapped, nipples stinging so badly they felt bloodied, and then he was groaning hot against her tongue and spilling inside her.

She held him down to her, struggling to catch her breath, feeling his heart beating so hard, bumping her hips up into him whenever it felt like he might withdraw.

His cock stayed inside her even after he had dropped, and she felt her body fisting him, slowly, like a wave. Schisms of pleasure opened up inside her, but her breasts were over-sensitive and aching, and the combination had her teeth on edge.

Suddenly Castle fumbled a hand between them, shifted to one hip with his cock partially thick inside her. She glanced down in time to see him finger her clit, a harsh rub that took her completely by surprise, and she burst into climax so deep her knees came up.

“There it is,” he murmured, kissing her on the neck as she shook. “That’s it, baby. You were waiting for me to find you.”

She suddenly felt like crying, so exhausted was her whole body, her whole fucking life, and she turned into him, pressed herself against his skin.

He wrapped his arm around her loosely, kissed her forehead. When her panicky orgasm began to ebb, the weariness stole over her like night.

She fell asleep before she could decide what all this grief was doing inside one of her best climaxes.

\-----

He was content for a while to watch her sleep, pleased that he’d done so well, prideful about how deeply she was under. He’d seen the everyday grief in her, and he’d begun to learn just how heavy a weight it was, how it dragged at her. She never gave in to it, but she had to be so worn out.

Especially when it seemed the world wasn’t going her way. Suspension, Castle showing up half-dead, Deleware following her, their run-in downstairs, her Captain on her doorstep - not to mention how hard she fought against her own nature.

She wanted things. She wanted. He could see it in the taut way she held herself apart from him, from life. 

Castle’s mission was to bring her as much solace as he could. It seemed stupid, cheesy even, overly sentimental and romantic, but he wanted to be something for her she couldn’t get alone, be good for her, be the man she turned to when that grief wore her down.

Baby steps, though. Right now he had this - a moment to watch her sleep - and six months from now, he hoped to have made inroads. 

Castle stroked the hair back from her damp temple, curled it behind her ear. The dog came padding down the hallway, nails clicking on the wood floors, and Castle lifted his head to follow his progress. Cujo paused at the couch, cocked his ears forward as if he were silently judging.

“Lie down, Cujo,” he commanded softly. “Down.”

Cujo went down on his belly like the Sphinx, watchful and solemn, but Castle ignored him, focusing instead on Beckett. She was soft flesh and strong bones under him, her breasts exposed to his view, her skin a pale cream. He dropped his cheek to the couch cushion and curled his arm over her waist, palming a breast.

Warm. Laid on her back, her breast creased heavily at her ribs, shifting flat but for the still-pert rise of her nipple. He swiped his thumb around the curve, tucked her in a little closer to him with a tug.

Beckett sighed in her sleep and rolled away from him, presenting her back, his hand half-under her. He spooned her body with his, liking this just as much, feeling her skin to skin.

She was a complex woman. Complicated. Things went on below the surface in ways he didn’t fathom, couldn’t, it seemed at times. He wanted to know her, figure her out, passions and force and fury, but there was something about the mystery that made him patient.

He didn’t have to find her answers today. Or six months from now. Having her body, having these furloughs from the mission where he buried himself inside her - he could do that for as long as he needed.

She changed her locks; he made a bump key. She threw out his clothes; he went naked. She slammed the door in his face; he shimmied up the fire escape and jimmied a window. She shut down on him; he fucked her until she forgot anything else but him.

He didn’t have it all down to a science, but he was getting close. He had situational moves now; he knew when to back off and when to press, knew how to talk to her, how to get her stories. He was learning; he could be taught.

A year from now. Five years from now. This was where he wanted to be, on her couch, stroking the hair back from her shoulder so he could kiss the nape of her neck and feel the warm blush of her skin.

But the life of a spy didn’t guarantee five years from now. He had this night. He had her under him. 

He’d give her another couple hours and then he’d carry her back to bed, hope she was deep enough into sleep that she wouldn’t wake. 

He ought to debrief. He should do a walk-in at the Office. He was supposed to be accounting for his actions and gearing up for his next run.

But he told himself his wrist was still throbbing in time to his heartbeat. He told himself it wasn’t just that he’d been torquing his hand to hold her down or get her off; he should probably really be fully recovered before he gave himself up.

Damn, she was beautiful. Her body was heaven next to his.

He really needed to figure out a way to get home more often. 

He wasn’t ready to go back yet.

\-----


	19. Chapter 19

Kate closed her eyes, hand on the door knob, but this time, she was allowed inside.

It turned for her, as it never had in real life that day five years ago; she’d been stopped in the hallway of their apartment building, stopped by the on-duty officers who’d kept the scene uncontaminated.

She was alone now. The press of male bodies in their uniforms, their heavy belts, their averted eyes - gone. She was alone with her hand on the door knob of her parents’ apartment door, and she took a stuttering breath and opened it.

She walked inside.

She remembered it just like this, how it had been: her mother’s case notes piled on the kitchen table, the computer on its little desk in the corner of the room so she had easy access to Lexus Nexus, the smell of cinnamon and black coffee, the stupid macrame plant hanger with the blooming African violets nestled in the web of knots. 

There was no blood.

That was different too.

She stepped past the kitchen doorway and through the short entry, down into the living room. Her father’s recliner, her mother’s reading glasses, the crossword half-filled, the television on but volume turned way down.

Kate’s heart clenched at the sound down the hall. She turned her head and looked, saw the light spilling out from her parents’ bedroom.

“Mom?” she called, couldn’t help herself.

And her mother stepped into the light, face in shadows but definitely giving Kate a smirk of her lips. “You missed dinner.”

“I - I did,” she said. But it was her mother who had missed dinner. Dead in the apartment, murdered-

Oh.

Oh, this was a dream.

“Mom,” she choked out, running down the hall as fast as the dream would carry her. She crashed into her mother in a blink, the transition from living room to bedroom instantaneous, and her mother’s tall form enfolded her.

“Hey, Katie, what’s this for?”

“I’m gonna get the bastard that did this,” she croaked, felt the tears weeping from her eyes. A dream. The best dream she’d ever had of her mother since-

“Language,” her mother admonished. “And it’s who not that. Personal-”

“Mother,” she huffed, laughing through her tears.

“Oh, mother is it? I must be in trouble.”

“Not in trouble,” she whispered. She couldn’t bear to pull away, out of the embrace, for fear that her mother’s face would be - altered. That her blouse and slacks would be soaked with her own blood. If Kate could just hang on-

But of course, she couldn’t.

Her mother began to fade, the moment Kate thought about clinging, and Johanna Beckett’s easy embrace and quick wit began to shimmer.

“Mom,” she begged.

“Hey, you’re squeezing tight, Katie,” her mother complained, lightly, faintly. Voice thinning.

And then she was gone, and Kate Beckett was awake, and she realized with a horrified shame that she had not said I love you.

She had said, I’ll get the bastard.

She rolled over, swallowing hard, and realized she had been carried to bed, apparently, but she was alone. The apartment was deathly quiet, and Cujo was awake and watching her at the foot of the bed, lying in Castle’s spot as he always did when his master was away.

Castle was gone.

But that had been the first dream since the murder in which her mother was alive. Alive. Alive and not brutalized and shot and left for dead in the hallway.  
\-----

She stood in her living room and surveyed the five a.m. half-light.

Cujo was at her feet, sentinel, and she turned her head slowly, not bothering to move her feet, just scanning the place.

His clothes were here, yes, but they were clothes she had bought for him. In a fit of weakness that she swore never to repeat. The bloodied wreck of her kitchen had been cleaned, of course, but he had taken out her trash before he had left so that not even his gauze and first aid paraphernalia were here. No DNA left, which was probably just old habit for him. She’d seen him do it before.

Leave no trace.

He’d set the coffee maker’s timer, she saw, and it was counting down. He apparently had not expected her to be awake at five, but he had been shooting for six, which showed he knew her quite better than she might have wished.

Cujo whined at her side and she let out a huffed breath, moved towards the couch. She scooped up the pair of sweat pants and the t-shirt left folded neatly there; she would wash them whenever she did her next load, which actually might be today considering her-

No.

No, she was pitching them. She had bought these, and he never took them with him, never said a word about having sweatpants appear magically at her place, and she didn’t even know why she’d done it to start with, but fucking hell, he could bring his own damn clothes.

He must be wearing the jeans she’d had buried at the bottom of her dresser. And the superhero shirt she’d picked up stupidly just a few months ago when she’d thought, he hasn’t been around in a while and usually that means he’ll show up with absolutely nothing.

And then he’d shown up bleeding to death and good thing she had jeans and a t-shirt, but shit. 

Fucking hell, this was not her life. If he wanted a maid service, he could find a damn hotel. Or a fucking personal assistant. It wasn’t her job to anticipate his needs, stock up miniature bottles of that Axe body wash he loved-

Fuck. Fuck. What had she come to? He had left just as he had arrived, and at least he had taken care of the Deleware situation before he’d gone. 

And she had a shrink out of the deal too, which had turned out to be more in her favor than she might have hoped. King was going to play ball, and all she had to do was show up tomorrow for one more session and say a few of the right things and then she’d get her damn life back.

leave no trace

It fucking sucked. Leave no trace. What a fucking terrible way to live a life, wasn’t life really at all, being ghost-like and insubstantial, being a nothing, being forgettable.

He wasn’t forgettable to her at all though, more’s the pity.

She could use a little more forgettable.

Cujo barked sharply and she shot him a glare, but she dumped the sweatpants and t-shirt back to the end of the couch. “Fine,” she hissed. “I’ll do it tomorrow. I’m taking a shower and then gonna have my coffee and work on the case.”

She combed her fingers through her hair and stalked down the hall for the bathroom. Started shedding clothes as she went, purposefully not thinking about all the things he had left behind this time.

Including her.

She flipped on the shower and stepped in before it was even warm, stood in the freezing cold spray, belligerently not looking at his body wash, her skin tight with goose bumps, not thinking about him.

And when would be the next time. How much in one piece, how much not. What part of him missing.

He had nearly lost his hand. She’d had no way of knowing, would never know; it would be fucking him like crazy one weekend and then absolute radio silence until the years stretched out and she had to assume-

Mark Eastman. His partner and Stateside support agent. If it - if it went too long with nothing, she could find a way to-

No. 

Fuck. She needed to change her fucking locks and just - get on with it. The first day was always hard, to stop thinking about how he made her feel - not feel, but feel - the fucking was just so good. So fucking good. It was hard not to think, obsess over it, hard not to close her eyes in the shower and imagine his fingers plucking her nipples and his mouth against her neck and traveling down.

She breathed deeply of the steam beginning to sink over her body, not moving for the shampoo, not willing to lose the faint but electric sensation of his body’s nearness.

He wasn’t near. He was-

“You look so damn gorgeous.”

She startled hard, eyes popping open, head jerking her back into the spray of water. She spluttered to get it out of her nose, shook her head to clear her vision, but it was still Castle.

Standing right there, peeling off his superhero t-shirt and now unbuttoning his jeans. She stared at him even when he had shucked his clothes and stepped nude into her shower.

“Castle.”

“You start without me?”

“No,” she whispered.

Castle hovered close, almost touching but not, his eyes tracing the shape of her mouth and making her sway towards him.

She was shorter than him. How had she not quite grasped that before? It wasn’t like she wore heels around him - it was just the heavy police issue uniform boots or bare feet, but she was noticing now.

He towered over her.

“You want to start without me, Beckett? I can watch.”

“No,” she husked. “You start instead.”

He gave her a nasty look but he palmed his cock, stroked his thumb over the head. She finally managed to detach from his insolent and somehow serious gaze, traveled her own down his body to that wild bush of hair and his protruding cock.

He was big even as he hung there, though his own hand made him seem proportionate. Even as she looked, he grew bigger, his cock thickening and stiffening, bobbing for her, the shower pounding around them.

She reached out her hands and placed them lightly on his hips, felt the tension of his muscles there, the obliques, the ones that wrapped around him and gave him stability. His body rocked as if towards her, and then away again, and his free hand came up and caught the back of her neck, crashing her forehead down into his cheek. 

He breathed heavily there, a little grunt when the shower began to hit him differently, and she shifted to the side just enough to get him drilled with water. Castle gave a soft, breathless curse and she felt his hips ride up against her hands.

“Keep going,” she husked. “Make yourself hard.”

“Already there,” he gritted out.

She nudged his chin away with her cheek, glanced down between them where the shadows and spray made his cock seem like a monster in the lake, rising to break the surface. His hand was pumping and squeezing in short, vicious strokes, no art to it, no real finesse.

She squeezed his hips in her hands and drew her palms down, her wrists trailing the inside of his arms until she brushed her fingertips over the tops of his thighs. He stuttered his breath and made a noise, and she traced her fingers lightly over his own hand.

“Kate, I can’t,” he gasped. He didn’t say what he couldn’t.

“You turned yourself in this morning,” she said, feeling the certainty and uncertainty warring inside her.

“No,” he choked out. His hips shivered into her hands. “No, Kate. Not yet.”

What? His orgasm or his turning himself in? She had a feeling they were more alike than either of them might wish.

“You didn’t see your father?”

“Saw King,” he croaked. “Talked - talked to him. He’s gonna talk to Black. Fuck, baby, let me come.”

“Not yet,” she whispered, turning her mouth back to his jaw. He tasted like toothpaste and aftershave, mint and woods, and she scraped her teeth back to his ear. “Stay like this until I say you can.”

“You’re - making it hard.”

“Yeah,” she laughed, smiling to herself and sharing it with him too, pressing her lips to his skin. “Yeah, I am. That would be the whole point.”

“I got you something,” he growled.

“I can certainly see that.”

He laughed though it was strained. The water was almost too hot now, and her back was stinging with it, but his cock was like fire in her hand. His hips chased up into her grip. “Got you something else to wield.”

“Mm, I do love to wield.”

He laughed but it groaned, his head dipping forward. “Please, Kate. Inside you or - or your mouth or-”

“Oh? My mouth. You want me on my knees in a bathtub when you’re the kind that comes so violently you’d crack your head open on the porcelain.”

He sucked in a breath, then another, finally spoke. “First part of that was so fucking hot. You can’t deny you want it.”

“Hmm.”

“Fuck, and that hum you do. In your throat. Around my cock. It feels like - electrodes.”

“We should get you one of those,” she murmured, prolonging his agony with a flick of her thumb over his throbbing head. She used her other hand to reach for his balls and he cursed, clutching her shoulders now and gripping hard.

“One of - of - what?”

“A cock electrode. Whatever they’re called, a vibrator for your cock-”

“Fuck me,” he swore. She felt how his cock pulsed and shivered with the need to come, but he was still holding it back for her.

Suddenly, dropping to her knees and sucking him off wasn’t good enough. Not when her cunt ached so badly she could shove him inside and not even need a moment to get used to it.

So she angled his cock down, feeling its strength and eagerness against her palm, and she stroked her knee up the outside of his leg. When she could, she hooked her thigh around his hip and jumped.

Castle cursed but he caught her; she had her arms tight around his neck and her smile breaking out across her face. He gave a noise that might have been a laugh, but she wriggled her hips and found his head, put a little weight behind her bouncing thrust.

And was impaled.

“Whoa, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he chanted.

She moaned and fluttered around him, how deep he was, how ready she’d been, how it still ached from all the fuckings before.

How good a feeling that was, being so fucked out she could barely stand his cock stretching her one more time.

She was gonna come the second he did one little thing more. His mouth on her neck or his fingers gripping her ass or his hips thrusting sharp.

But he didn’t do any of those things. 

He held her tightly with one strong not-even-straining arm, and he traced a line up her spine to her neck, trailed his fingers along her collarbone to her chest, and then he skimmed the backs of his fingers under her jaw and back, coasting.

She was shivering violently but the water wasn’t cold.

He slowly combed the wet hair back from her face and then he leaned in, kissed her with lips that worshiped.

She mewled into his mouth and then he began to thrust.

She was unraveling in seconds, her climax skittering out along the ley lines of her body, building power and energy like a juggernaut until she cried out.

Until she cried.

At least the shower washed it away before it was even there.

\-----

“Come with me?” he husked.

“Already did that,” she croaked, opening one eye, the water sluicing down her jaw and between them. He was still holding her, both arms wrapped under her ass, but she could feel how his legs trembled.

“Definitely did that. I meant - come with me to bed.”

“Mm, sounds good.”

“You get the water for me?” He was already reaching up to yank back the shower curtain, so she kicked out a foot and hooked the flat handle of the faucet, cramped her toes to turn it off. 

Kinda proud of herself for that. He was already stepping out of the bathtub, one foot after the other, and each step jarred his cock inside her. She hummed and rocked her hips into him, felt him stiffening, thickening. She loved this feeling, Castle between her legs, so achingly perfect it was.

“You mind being wet?”

She huffed a laugh, rubbed her lips against his rough-hewn jaw. “Think you should’ve asked me that before you stepped into my shower and shoved your cock inside me.”

He laughed back, a barking thing that meant she’d surprised him; he hadn’t seen it coming. She smiled and nipped his skin, licked the place where she hadn’t quite broken the skin. 

“Fuck, I really love how you feel,” he sighed.

She clenched her thighs at his hips and he carried her to the bed, lowered her slowly. She felt the wet rope of her hair under her head, soaking the pillow, but she couldn’t be bothered to care. He gripped her knee and squeezed, hiked her leg a little higher.

“I’m gonna fuck you,” he growled.

She moaned, closing her eyes against it.

“I got something for you, Kate,” he husked. His hips crashed into hers, hard and rough, and she arched to meet him.

“You definitely got something,” she gasped. Her leg bent back nearly to her ear as he stroked deeper, and she dug the heel of her other foot into the mattress for leverage.

“I got something for you, baby, and I want you to take it.” He grunted as he thrust, his cock delving deep, splitting wide. “You’re gonna take it, Kate.”

“Fuck me,” she moaned. Her body was tightening.

“You have to take it,” he growled. “Promise me. Promise me, Beckett.”

“Harder,” she panted, her hips coming up, seeking him as he withdrew.

“Promise.”

“Please, Castle-”

“Promise me and I’ll fucking tear you apart with it.”

“Promise,” she begged. “Promise, I promise to take it-”

He groaned, hips pistoning into her, deep and deeper, so fucking hard, cleaving her wide. She felt battered. Fucking battered. She was going to split apart; she couldn’t take it. Couldn’t. She was going to-

“Fuck!” Her orgasm ripped through her, bursting black and gold behind her eyes, out of control lunges of her hips.

He went still, completely still, and she contracted around him, gripping and squeezing the steel core of him. Her body shook with it, fell back to earth, her head dropping to the pillow. She panted hard, peeled open her eyes to stare up at him.

“Rick.”

“I’m so damn hard for you,” he scraped. “You feel that? How fucking rigid I am? All the fucking time. I can’t stop. I know I’ve fucked you like crazy, and I should be sorry for the sore-”

“Shut the fuck up and don’t stop.”

Castle moaned, head dropping to hers, breath heaving in his lungs so that he brushed her tender nipples. One of his hands came up and his fingers touched her lips, and then he torqued his hips, withdrawing - agonizing and slow. 

She mewled, thighs twitching, soaked in sweat, skin burning at the feel of him. He was holding his body apart, connected only by the rod of his cock inside her, his thighs brushing hers. She could feel the kink of his hair, the weight of his balls at her ass. She widened her legs, arched up, and he moaned, his breath skirting her neck.

Without warning, Castle stroked down, falling so heavy over her the bed shook. He started pounding, fast, hard, insistent. Taking. Her bones were about to break. He was making her raw inside, every drag over her clit, the iron spike of his cock driving deep.

He groaned out. “Fuck, fuck. Kate. Kate, I need to come. I have to come.”

She could barely catch her breath. Her ribs were cracking. “When you - got in the shower - when I told you - touch yourself,” she started, aching for it. “Your hand came around your cock and I thought, holy fuck, he’s so huge. And now - you’re inside me. So deep. Splitting me open.”

Castle roared with his orgasm, her name a mangled thing but his ejaculation so fucking powerful that she choked on it.

He fell over her body, his cock throbbing with the last of it inside, skins melting and melding to one.

Kate blinked, closing her mouth and turning her head into his neck. His chest rumbled with something sweet and awkward, but he dragged an arm in and cradled her back, rolled them onto their sides. She slowly skimmed her hand down his back, fit her palm against his ass, squeezing tight.

His hips thrust, she grunted as she felt his cock shifting inside her, and she could swear he was smiling at her temple.

“I really did get you something,” he husked. “And I wanna show it to you.”

“You did?” she whispered. She brought her fingers up his chest, swirled at his collarbone. “Not a present.”

“No, love. Not a gift. A necessity.”

“We’ll see,” she murmured.

His fingers caught in a tangle of her damp hair; he stroked back to her neck, thumb rubbing. “We can play a little, with it, if you’re into that.”

Her breasts tingled at the tone of his voice; she was suddenly slick with wetness between her legs.

“Play - with it?”

“Cold steel,” he husked, fingers touching her inside thigh. “Right here. Close. Where my cock usually rests.”

“Oh, fuck,” she gasped.

“Yeah, baby, I knew you’d be into it.”

“Whatever it is. Show me. Show me and then fuck me.”

\-----


	20. Chapter 20

“Close your eyes.”

Beckett glanced at him in the doorway, his hands behind his back - bare-ass naked - and she closed her eyes, biting her bottom lip. His cock had been bobbing as he stood there, and she could almost taste it.

Maybe he would walk up to the bed and stand right there and his cock would brush across her mouth. He’d husk, put your tongue on me-

“Here,” he said gruffly. And then she felt something ice-cold at her belly. And heavy.

Her eyes flashed open and her hands came up to catch the thing before it could slide.

A gun.

He had laid a gun over her stomach. “Is it loaded?” she croaked. Fucking hell. 

“No.”

Even though it went against her training, she didn’t check. She picked it up.

“Fuck,” she whispered. It felt so damn good in her hand, the grip was fantastic. “This is - exactly right.”

“Isn’t it though?” he husked, dropping down to sit beside her. She rubbed her thumb over the stock and down the grip, handling it back and forth between left and right, her palms warming the metal.

“A .45,” she murmured. 

“Carries 7 rounds,” he said. His hand came to her breast and rubbed over her nipple. She closed her eyes, breathing hard. “Compact Carry Ultralight from Wilson. Knew you needed an extra piece here at home, love.”

“Yeah,” she whispered. His fingers kneaded her breast and she sucked in a breath, felt him roll her nipple with his thumb. Her eyes opened. “Touch me.”

“I am touching you.”

She palmed the weapon, laid it at her hip so that the barrel pressed to his thigh. Not loaded. Not loaded but it felt so damn powerful. Smooth, perfect weight. He was looking down at her like the sexiest fucking thing he’d ever seen.

“It’s erotic,” he husked. “That gun in your hand and that look in your eyes.”

“Touch me.”

He twisted her nipple hard and she grunted, arching up, her breasts raw. She realized she was gripping the gun like she gripped him, milking it, the textured handle sending tantalizing sensations back through her body.

“This is a fucking expensive weapon,” she said, lifting her eyes to him. “This is-”

“Fuck that. Does it feel good?”

She stared up at him; he was talking to her and she was holding a gun at his thigh and his fingers were teasing her nipple. “Feels good.”

“It’s yours.”

“I can’t take-”

His fingers trailed down her belly to her hip, stroked lightly to her wrist, circled the weapon. “My turn.”

She blinked, released the gun to him. He took it by the barrel though, completely wrong, and he bumped the heavy grip against her hip, dragged it, dangling, through her pubic hair.

“Rick,” she gasped.

He flipped the gun in a heartbeat, gripping it firmly, and then the barrel was pressed below her belly, deadly, cold, burning.

She froze.

He was staring down at the gun on her.

“Rick.” 

His eyes lifted to hers. “I’ve never...”

Her skin was on fire. “Do it.”

He pulled the trigger.

She flinched as it clicked on nothing, her heart racing, her palms damp. She had to close her eyes, her head dropping back to the pillow, fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Fuck,” he croaked.

“Fuck me,” she husked.

His mouth crashed down into hers, blindsiding her with it, his tongue thrusting fast, sharp, teeth painful. The gun was pressed at her belly and his side, digging into her, and his other hand came to her neck and squeezed.

She choked, gasping his name, eyes flaring open. Castle lifted his mouth from hers, his eyes black and dark in the centers, his chest heaving.

And then he trailed the gun down between her legs.

She was trembling, she was going to cry; holy fuck, what was he doing to her? Why did she want it so badly?

The barrel of the gun nudged her sex and noises came out of her mouth, a cracked sound, her eyes on him and his intent on her.

“Feels good?”

“I don’t know,” she gasped. “I don’t know. What are you doing to me?”

He pushed the weapon a little deeper between her folds and she gasped, the cold steel hitting her clit and warming fast. He began stroking her with it, stroking, the expectation of a bullet so blazing and fierce that she began to sob.

The gun came up, trailing arousal wetly up her stomach. He put the barrel at her breast, a painful pinch of her nipple before going on again.

And then it was in her mouth. She moaned around the taste of herself, faintly him as well, the sharp oil and the cunt-flavor, and now Castle was leaning in over her, his body coming down to meet hers.

He withdrew the gun, palming the barrel, swiping his fingers around the rim. He dragged his hand with the weapon roughly down her side to her hip, pressed it into her like a pistol whipping only permanent, static, hard.

His mouth touched hers. His tongue trailed over the come at the corner of her lips.

“Does that scare you like it scares me?” he rasped.

“Yes.” She felt her body shaking.

“Is that why you’re crying?”

“No, I don’t know.”

“I’d fuck you with the gun, Kate, but it’s fucking expensive and I don’t want your cream getting down inside so that it jams when you need it most.”

“Just-” she groaned. Had to stop to breathe, gulping it down. “Just press it against my belly and lie down over me, so that we both feel it there.”

“Fuck, Kate, you’re so fucking hot.”

“You’ve never done this-”

“Never thought I wanted to. Not until I saw it. Knew you had to have it.”

Kate gripped his ass, squeezing. “Give it to me.”

Castle lifted to one elbow, enough space between their bodies, dragged the gun to her stomach. Her abs were quivering; she was staring down between them at the weapon just as she stared at the place where they joined.

“Think of this as an extension of me. This is your back-up when I’m not here.”

She blinked, something beginning to clear in her sex-crazed brain, but now he was entering her with his cock, slowly, pushing inside, warm and thick where the gun had been blunt and short and cold.

His body came down over hers, the gun pressed between them, digging into her hip bone on one side. He opened his mouth and laid it at her breast, licked until he bit her. “You’re so damn erotic, Kate.”

“I’m gonna come,” she husked.

“Your body is amazing. Strong. And you respond to me like it’s the first time. Like we’ve had hours of foreplay and I’m driving you crazy.”

“It’s all foreplay,” she moaned. She felt desperate. She was desperate; she needed to come so badly.

The gun was hot now, pinching and hard. Heavy. His mouth sucked on her neck. His cock was beginning to throb. He came to her ear, warm breath. “I pulled the trigger. I didn’t think I’d do that.”

She shouted on an orgasm that ripped through her, clutching his cock in the grip of her cunt, arms banded around him, moaning.

Moaning.

She realized then that the tears were gone, dry on her cheeks. 

She felt fucking invincible.

\-----

Castle shifted the weapon to her bedside table and settled back on top of her, a little more gently this time. She was gulping her breaths and keeping her eyes squinted closed, like she couldn’t face him. He caressed her eyebrows and nose, down to her lips with his fingertips, waiting for her to come back to him.

But she still wouldn’t open her eyes.

Castle figured he’d done enough pushing - he had trod all over her boundary lines pretty hard today - so he sank down to the mattress at her side and slid his arm around her waist. He shifted behind her even as she curled on her side, still trying to catch her breath.

She was damp with sweat and shower, and her hair was sticking to her neck. He combed it back, teasing the strands from her skin, softly kissed her spine. Goose bumps shivered up her body, a tension zipping through her. He petted her shoulder and down to her arm, brought his knees up behind her curled legs.

His arm slid around her, came up between her breasts, cupped her neck at the pillow. She shivered again.

“You did that on purpose,” she rasped.

“If you’re asking did I mean to fuck you with it, then yes. I completely did that on purpose.”

“You did that to make me take your damn gift.”

“It’s not a gift,” he murmured. It took everything in him not to flinch, not to beg. He had to be cool. “It’s a tool. You need a back-up piece here-” And not fucking Royce’s fun. “Never know what might follow you home.” 

“Like you?” she snorted.

“Exactly. You could’ve gotten rid of me before you knew what you’d be missing.”

“Missing-” she started hotly.

“My fucking huge cock,” he growled, nipping her jaw right below her ear. His cock which could rebound in a moment’s notice if she shifted her thigh back, if she reached for him, if she gave him any indication that she was ready again.

“I do miss that cock,” she sighed. But her fingers didn’t reach; she didn’t move at all. She stayed in the shelter of his body and nuzzled her chin down to his hand. Castle rubbed his thumb at her jaw and up over her bottom lip, insistent brushes, feeling her sink forward into his arm.

She was tired. He had worn her out, and he’d known that hours ago, but he kept pushing his way inside. 

No more. Not right now. He’d hold her in bed while she would let him; he’d let her fall asleep, hopefully, and he’d turn her alarm off (because he knew she had set it, despite being on probation from work). He would be here when she woke naturally, and he would touch her because she deserved to be worshiped, not just fucked, and she would know, she would know his heart even if she didn’t want it.

He knew hers. He had found her, despite the bluster and bristle and spines, he had found that valiant and noble heart, and he was going to-

Well, he wouldn’t be keeping it safe exactly. He was giving her heart a workout, that was true. He was stretching her heart, carrying it around with him, tugging it out on an adventure, exposing it to risk. He hadn’t meant to; he hadn’t taken his own heart out in so long that he hadn’t known what he was doing.

He knew now. He saw what was possible between them, and he wanted it. For them. For her. He wanted it for her because she was an amazing woman and she deserved something good, something that would hold her up when she was losing it.

An expensive gun was really only a very small part of it.

He loved her and he was going to make sure she felt it. 

He was going to make damn certain that Kate Beckett felt loved.

\-----

She was supposed to be at work.

She wouldn’t be at work today.

Castle stirred at her back - literally stirred, his cock awake if not the rest of him - and she suppressed a smile, really didn’t feel like feeding his ego right now. He’d fucked her over - twice - once by buying her a fucking expensive gun and then twice by actually making her take it - and she wasn’t feeling kindly towards that cock of his.

Well, okay, she was always feeling kindly towards his cock. He was right. It was fucking huge. It filled her to the brim and made her choke on it, and it was so fucking good.

But the Castle attached to the cock was a little insufferable right now, so she carefully slinked out from under his arm and slid out of bed. When she turned around, he had fallen face-first into her pillow and snuggled it up to his chest, and she was momentarily envious of the damn pillow.

Instead, Kate hunted through her drawers for something to wear only to be interrupted by Cujo slipping through the crack in the door and whining at her feet. Kate leaned over, petting him behind the ears, under his jaw, her breasts a little too exposed with the dog right here.

Fuck, it wasn’t like the dog knew. Still, Kate pulled on a pair of underwear, her capris sweats, and a dark-colored t-shirt. She would have to take the dog out, it seemed; he was used to her early morning departures and doing his business by seven at the latest.

Kate brushed her fingers over the top of his head, curled back to his collar to tug him out of the room after her. They padded down the hallway together, Cujo brushing her thigh, his tail wagging slowly. 

Kate found his leash and her shoes - ballet flats that looked completely incongruous with her sweats and - oh, fuck, this was Castle’s damn t-shirt. Why did she keep doing that? Washing and folding his clothes and then mixing them with her own so that she pulled a shirt from her drawer and it was his.

It kind of smelled like him. Kind of. Just at the collar where his sweat must have worked deep into the threads of the seam. She-

Cujo whined.

Kate sighed and clipped on the dog’s leash, roughly rubbed his ears with both hands, kissed the top of his head. Cujo gave her a pitiful lick of his tongue and nosed towards the door, tugging her with him.

Once they were outside, she went ahead and took Cujo for a walk, her keys rattling in the pocket of her sweats, her breasts loose under the shirt. She hadn’t thought she’d be going anywhere, she’d thought only to take him quickly to the lone tree outside, but now she wanted a little movement and freedom.

Deleware was in a jail cell at the 12th and Castle was healing upstairs in her building. She’d taken out those damn stitches after scant days, but the bleeding had stopped.

Still freaked her the fuck out, whatever it was that she’d injected him with. Fuck. She had no idea why or what it did to him, only that it had worked. He was alive now and she’d been fairly certain that he was dying - she had seen a man die before - and that had been in his eyes and on his breath.

Fuck, she didn’t want to do that again. There was a weight to it, a responsibility that scared the shit out of her, she knew that, she could admit that.

Cujo barked once at the entrance to the park and Kate obliged, turning into it and allowing him the lead. The dog was huge, really; so fucking huge, and she was so damn grateful to his biddable nature, that he came when she called, that he backed her up when she needed that too.

Kate patted the top of his head and wandered through the trees with him, not allowed to take him off the leash in this part of the park. Cujo didn’t seem to mind, and she gave him a lot of slack with the leash, letting him have his head.

He was a fucking huge dog and so of course Castle had brought him to her. Castle who had no idea how to do real life, who was always clueless when it came to living like a normal person, and she kinda loved that. Made him special. Made him someone who wouldn’t get stuck on her and do - do normal things.

She wasn’t cut out for normal.

Cujo wagged his tail as a kid raced by, backpack thumping, apparently late to school. The dog looked so hopeful but the kid didn’t even slow down, didn’t even notice, and Cujo’s tail went still.

“Poor puppy,” she murmured, stepping through the grass to the dog. She stroked his head and up his velvet ears, slid down the slope of his nose. She had trained him like a K-9 unit, she had instilled in him the deadly ability to use his size and force against a threat, but she sometimes forgot to play.

She should’ve realized. Castle had taught her to play. Well, have mind-blowing sex and that wasn’t always playful. The gun, holy fuck, the gun had been - um, yes. Playful. And fucking hot. And serious. That had been very serious on a level she didn’t want to delve into yet. 

But the dog. She could throw a damn stick for the dog, right?

Determined now, Kate scoured the ground for a good one, found a thick stick with faded blights of lichen, and she waved it in front of Cujo’s face. When she had the dog’s attention, she chucked it towards the trees.

Cujo’s eyes followed it and when it landed, he turned back to her, tongue hanging out.

“Fetch,” she said, pointing.

Cujo turned his back on her and wandered towards a patch of clover.

“Cujo,” she called. “Get the stick.”

Cujo ignored her and lifted his leg.

“Well, fine,” she muttered. “See if I play with you.”

\-----

He came out of his doze to the sound of the door opening and closing, the jangle of the dog’s collar. But no Kate. The sheets were cool.

He slid his legs out from under the covers, stood up with a stretch. The gun was on her bedside table where he’d left it, and Castle reached out and stroked the barrel. He was mildly astonished at what he’d done to her last night, what she’d asked him to do. But she had the weapon now, didn’t she?

She wouldn’t be carrying around Mike Royce’s fucking spare piece. Hell no.

He picked up the weapon and felt its weight, the grip of it. Do it, she’d said. And he had. Fuck, he had. He needed to clean this now, inside and out, show her how to break it down if she didn’t already know. She probably already knew.

Castle opened her closet door and began going through the top shelf until he found the metal box. There it was nestled inside, the damn hand-me-down.

He was fucking tempted. He really was, but Royce had been her training officer. He couldn’t just take it. 

But he did take it out and eject the clip, check the barrel and firing pin, but then when it was broken down, he didn’t want to put it together again. He left it in pieces in the metal box and he pushed it to the back of the shelf, piling other things on top.

He took her new weapon from the bedside table again, the gorgeous black, the grip that was tailored to the width of her hand and the curve of her fingers. He was good at making assessments like that, best guess, and coming up exactly right.

Castle headed out of the bedroom with the weapon, wondering if she had oil and a rag, the little brush. When he walked down the hall, he saw Kate standing at the stove, licking her thumb as she stirred something in a pan.

He smelled sausage, eggs, something cheesy; she liked rubbing his nose in the fact that his omelettes were always so terrible. There was music playing, a radio he thought, though he didn’t remember ever seeing one (and he’d been paying attention). The music covered the sound of his approach, something with saxophone, jazz, and he found his mood mellowing to match its tones.

Castle wrapped his arms around her from behind, snuggled his nose down into her neck. “Mm, smells good.”

She hummed back, nudging the crown of her head into his cheek. “You fell asleep. You said you wouldn’t.”

“You wore me out,” he murmured. Another kiss at her neck, and he splayed his hand along her belly, inched up the hem of her shirt.

“Wore you out but you’re angling for more?” she chuckled.

“Always.”

Kate lifted her hand back to him, her fingers caressing. Strangely intimate for Kate, and his eyes closed, chest tightening at the feel of her touch. 

He ached for her. His throat closed up and he buried his mouth against her neck to keep from begging. For what, he didn’t even know, just to stay right here like this forever.

He’d never had that thought before. It had always been having a place to come back to, come crawling home - that had been the dark secret of his heart. He hadn’t realized how much he’d wanted that until Kate, and now he was wanting... this.

To not move from this spot. To never leave her.

She shrugged her shoulder against his chin. “You’re heavy, baby. Lift up.”

He growled into her neck and her fingers twisted his ear. Castle yelped and backed off, though he didn’t let go of her waist. He dragged his fingers against her stomach and settled beside her at the stove.

“You making me any?”

“I suppose so,” she drawled, turning her head to wink at him. He grinned back and leaned in, kissed the corner of her mouth. She ducked him again and elbowed him off. “Make toast or something. What’s with that look on your face?”

“Nothing. Just happy. You walked Cujo already?”

“Yeah, he needed out. Not there, Castle - in the breadbox.”

“What’s... well, okay, so a breadbox is as advertised, obviously. But which one of these gizmos is the breadbox?”

She laughed, her eyes startling to his. “You’re hilariously inept, you know that?” She pointed with the spatula towards a red oblong metal canister that looked as if it had come from a seventies version of a space shuttle. 

“Hell, what is - how does this work?”

“It’s like the oven - you just open the door,” she snorted. “Come on, hurry up. This is almost done.”

Castle glanced at the breadbox and then caught his finger in what might be a handle, pulled open the door. And there was the sad little loaf of store-bought bread, nothing at all like what he’d expected to find in a futuristic container like that.

“Oh. What does Cujo get for breakfast?” he said, peeling off two slices of bread and then two more. “I can do that.”

She laughed again, a lift of her eyebrow, and then she nodded for the pantry. “Dry food in the container on the floor. One cup, in his dish. And water, Castle. Clean water.”

Castle watched her go back to the omelette and then headed for the pantry, still studying her at the stove. It wasn’t that he needed her to make him breakfast, it was just that she had. On her own. She had included him without even thinking about it; she’d just - made enough for him and then told him to make toast.

Two years ago, Beckett would have stared him down if he’d asked had she made enough for both of them. Actually, two years ago, Beckett wouldn’t have been making an omelette at all. 

She’d have been angling for a way to kick him out.

“Kate?”

She turned from the stove with the pan in her hand, her eyebrow raised, but something in her body that suggested she’d been swaying to the jazz coming over the radio.

Two years ago, the Beckett he’d followed onto the subway would never have been swaying in her kitchen to the soulful sound floating in the air. 

It was love. That was the difference in her and he knew it. He knew it just by looking at her. She might still get so furiously frustrated with him, she might even change her locks, but when they came together, the love was there.

“Castle?” she said. “Spit it out. I gotta dish up the omelette.”

“Nothing,” he croaked. “It goes unsaid.”

Her forehead wrinkled in an adorably confused way. “It goes unsaid?”

“For now anyway,” he said and turned back to the dog food.

\-----

She was smiling with her lips pressed together even as he danced her slowly back towards the bedroom. Her fingers were hooked into his boxers, though she still looked coy.

He kissed her again, tasting coffee, their tongues stroking in a way that was so damn intimate his cock rose immediately, straining for her. Kate hummed in his mouth and slid her fingers to the front of his pants, palmed his burgeoning erection.

“Come on, love,” she murmured. “I’ve got three hours before I have to be at Dr King’s.”

“Need me to relax you?” he grinned. “Therapy make you stressed, baby?”

She was going back to his mouth, lips sealing to his, her tongue teasing. He barely remembered to breathe, wrapping his arms tighter and pressing her body to his. Her thighs parted for his and their groins bumped wickedly.

“Fuck me,” she husked, her fingers stroking the tops of his thighs.

“Yeah, I’m gonna have to do that. Right now.” He gripped her by the waist and hoisted her up, walked the two steps it took to get back to the couch. She laughed in his ear, but it was breathless; she wanted him too.

“What happened to that slow seduction in bed?” she teased.

“You happened,” he muttered, laying her down on the couch. She wouldn’t unlock her legs from his waist, and he was stuck there, the wonderful-terrible friction of her body against his. “You keep happening. All your fault.”

She was grinning back at him, clearly enjoying her power. Castle got a hand inside her leggings and yanked them down, twisting out from her grip though she was faster than he’d expected.

“Mm, you been training on your own, Beckett?”

She wriggled her eyebrows at him and sat up, shucking her shirt in one effortless movement. “Yes. Now get to work, soldier.”

He untangled her leggings from her feet and went back for her panties, trying to slow it down, trying to do the whole slow seduction thing, but fuck, it was impossible.

She worked at the front clasp of her bra, popped it open but left it hanging there. Castle abandoned her panties to push his hands inside those cups, palming her breasts and squeezing.

“Oh, hell,” she cursed, hips jerking. He got down on his knees in front of the couch, leaned his torso hard into the cradle of her thighs, his mouth falling to her belly. She moaned and gripped his arms, dragged her touch up to his hands still kneading her breasts.

Something so fucking erotic about her guiding his touch. Clinging to his hands as if she was afraid he’d stop. Castle lifted his head from her belly to watch her face. Her eyes fluttered open and she stared down at him, her hands clasped over his. Her nipples were tight buds under his palms, and he worked his fingers in to twist them.

She gasped, arching up into his chest, her eyes slamming shut.

Castle lowered his mouth to her stomach again, his tongue touching her skin, tracing the edges of her abs as her muscles went taut. She gripped his hands, her knees came up hard under his arms, and he trailed his mouth down to her belly button.

She was moaning. He could feel the vibrations down to his lips. “You’re so beautiful, Kate.”

She gripped his wrists and down to his elbows, trying to rise up, but he kept her down against the cushions. His mouth traveled over her hip bone and scaled up her ribs, his body rubbing between her legs. He could feel the heat of her sex, the arousal sliding against his shirt.

“Gotta get this off,” she growled. Her fingers scratched his skin as she curled them under the hem of his shirt. “Off, Castle.”

“I’ll get you off,” he promised softly. He opened his mouth over her sternum and breathed, her hips bumping up into him in response. “I want to taste you, love.”

“Please,” she husked. He’d been expecting more curses, but instead she was whining his name and dragging his shirt up, body bumping into his. He lifted enough to peel off the shirt, lowered his skin back to hers, bodies colliding.

She moaned and tightened her heels at his ass, but he resisted to look at her, keep looking at her.

Her eyes fluttered open again and her teeth caught her bottom lip. She looked wildly vulnerable in a way that made him wish he’d taken her to bed like he’d promised.

“Rick.”

He framed her face in his hands and lifted up to kiss her, lips brushing and raw and then tongue, hers curling at his, stroking. He pressed into her, knees digging into the floor for leverage. She arched into him, her way of telling him to get on with it, but there was something about french kissing Kate Beckett that made him want to stay right here forever.

She groaned something into his teeth and gripped his ass, fingering between his cheeks so that his heart stopped beating.

Castle growled and dropped his face down to her chest, sucked a nipple into his mouth, the fierceness of need controlling him. He bit her nipple and she cried out, her legs widening and body bucking up into him. The wet slick of her arousal was hot against his belly and he slid down her body again, biting and sucking a trail down towards her sex.

When he nudged his nose at the crease of her thigh, she got this breathy sound to her moans, like she couldn’t keep up with him, like it was all galloping out of her control. He smiled at her inside thigh and turned his mouth into her sex.

She gasped, going rigid, and he spread her with his tongue.

“Please, please, Rick, you have to-” 

He tongued her clit, nudged it against his teeth so that she was gasping again, her body beginning to work up against him. Castle gripped her thighs and pushed his thumbs at her sex, stroked his fingers down her folds until he found her slit. She mewled and clutched at him, a fistful of his hair and his shoulder, her hips grinding into him.

He pushed a finger inside her and she cried out, a long chain of sounds as her walls fluttered around him just like her eyelids had. She was so close; she would come with very little prompting, but he wanted to prolong it.

He wanted to feast on her.

“Rick, please. Please.” She gasped a breath and tried again. “Please, please let me come. Please, love, I can’t.”

She sounded so desperate for it, for him, and her hips bumped and pitched against his mouth. He loved her, he loved her, and so he worked another finger inside her and curled them up against her walls. She keened, her body falling apart under him, her rhythm wild and fierce and riding his hand.

He lifted his mouth from the taste of her thick cream, laid his cheek against her inside thigh as he drew her orgasm out with his fingers. He watched her come down in these abrupt drops, her hips first, her chest heaving, her arms dropping away from him.

He rubbed his cheek against the tender skin of her inside thigh, pressed a kiss there.

She sighed, shivering as her orgasm faded into bliss. He slowly withdrew his fingers and slid them over her other leg, stroked softly up and down, up and down, not even waiting for her, just watching the gorgeous way she didn’t even try to put herself back together.

How mellow she was in this moment. How beautiful.

Her eyes opened to him, her gaze steady and easy. “Come ‘ere.”

He crawled up her body and she pulled her legs up onto the couch, slid sideways on the cushions. He laid over her, her knee coming up at his hip and cradling him, and her head lifted to touch her mouth to his.

It was a slow kiss. She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him, and the kiss went on. His mouth opened at her lips to breathe, his heart tumbling out of beats, and her fingers played at the hair on the back of his neck, her mouth nudging at his, glancing off, herding him back to her.

He kissed her again, sliding a hand down her side to her thigh, stroking, stroking. 

She was loose and warm and pliant, completely unlike Beckett, and there was something alluring about her body so inviting.

After too long, not long enough, Kate curled her fingers at his ears and tugged, their mouths separating but their foreheads pressed together. She was a little breathless when she spoke. “Now you can take me to bed.”

“Yes, love.”

\-----


	21. Chapter 21

Castle lowered her to the bed, easing her down, half-hoping she’d sleep, take it easy, rest, but hoping more to keep touching her. Just touch, fingers across her ribs and stroking the flare of her hip, the smooth and soft skin at her inside thigh, the contradictory sensations of her abs tensing under the heat of her stomach. 

“Fuck,” she whispered, dragging her own hand after his, circling his wrist. “Lay over me.”

He grinned and she bit her bottom lip. Her body was flush below him, splayed out for his view, nipples hardening even as he perused her every line.

“Stop dawdling,” she husked.

“Just admiring the view.”

“Get up here, you asshole,” she said. But all the acid was gone from her tone, it was breathy and demanding - and needy. He touched the backs of his fingers to her stomach, the soft place where the rise of her sex gave away to her belly, the sensitive skin, the flinch of her belly button.

She rubbed her palm up his forearm, gripped his elbow, like seeking an anchor, her eyes roving over his face. He watched the trail of his own hand over her belly, teasing her, but he couldn’t help darting quick glances to her face, soaking in her building arousal.

“Richard,” she growled.

He laid his body over hers; she mewled at his ear, hips bucking.

“Easy, love,” he whispered. “Easy with me.”

“You have to speed this up,” she gasped. Her thighs parted around his, knees dragging up his outside thighs. He gave in and thrust down against her, felt her wet and hot. She choked on her breath and clung to his neck, trying to drag him down.

“Baby, you need something?” he asked, all innocence. But he rocked his hips against her.

“Don’t be so fucking mean,” she groaned. “God. Just-”

Castle slipped his hand over her thigh and fingered her cunt. She moaned, loud and sharp in his ear, panting. He could feel her breath against him, the flash of her teeth as she pressed her cheek tighter to his. She struggled against losing it; she was trying not to fall apart.

So Castle rubbed his thumb against her clit and pushed two fingers inside her, already so damn slick and hot from the couch. She grunted and lifted her hips to meet his hand, so he worked her, in and out, circling her clit while he pumped into her body.

“Fuck,” she groaned. “Fuck, I wanted - wanted your cock. Fuck.”

“This feels good, doesn’t it?” Wasn’t really a question, she was writhing. Writhing. He dipped his mouth to her neck, felt his erection straining for her. “I loved watching you cook breakfast for me.”

“Castle,” she moaned.

“Love how proud you were,” he murmured, licking the underside of her jaw. She was sucking in every breath, little noises as he rubbed her sex, caught her clit against her folds. 

“Please,” she whispered. “Please.”

“Love how you watched me eat it, because you cared, you care. I matter to you.”

“Please,” she begged. “I need you.”

He pressed his fingers apart inside her, nudged his hips into her groin so that his cock slid into the sheath he’d made. She cried out as he entered her, body trembling, her hands in fists at his back, clinging.

He pressed deeper, putting his full weight behind it, and she groaned. 

“I need you too,” he husked, a touch of his lips to her jaw. “I need you, Kate.”

She was breathing hard, the sound noisy in the relative silence of her bedroom with his body still and buried deep inside her. She wound her arm around his neck, crushing their heads together as she gripped him.

“Then take me,” she growled. “Take me, damn it. Don’t stop.”

So he fucked her.

\-----

She loved this. She could do this forever, arched hard, fucked. Fucked.

God, it was so good. He was so good. She couldn’t get enough. Her teeth rattled, bones jolted, his name was wrenched from of her throat.

He was fucking her, driving hard into her cunt, crushing her clit between them. Everything was hard. All of it was brutal and necessary. She couldn’t survive, couldn’t breathe, she had to come.

“Grind,” she growled at him. “Grind into me.”

He cursed and worked his hips down against her, thrusting, and she came so fucking hard. She screamed as it ripped out of her, jagged and fierce, teeth grinding. She could feel him losing it, trying to hang on, dragged down into the rip tide with her.

Even as she was spinning in the dizzy dregs of her orgasm, Castle pressed her thighs open and drove his cock deeper, exploding with a hoarse cry. His body went wild, she couldn’t hang on, she was caught in the thrall of his come.

He grunted and dropped hard on top of her, his breath harsh in his chest, pressing his ribs into her soft parts, hurting. She dragged a shaky hand up his ribs and gulped for breath, something horrifyingly tender welling up in her chest, smothered by his body over hers.

“Fuck, I needed that,” he rasped. His voice was shaky. “After the chair.”

The chair. She loved shredding his insides out. She loved having this massive-strong man held captive, lashed to a chair and begging for her. Made being crushed by his weight right now somehow still her doing, her fucking power.

“Mm, I see,” she murmured, smiling into his shoulder. She touched her tongue to his skin and he shuddered, violently. Dislodging her mouth. 

Castle nudged his arm under her neck and rolled them onto their sides, though really he was still draped mostly over her. He was so large; even being tall, he was thick legs to tangle hers around, strong arms that flexed against her breast and back, such wide shoulders he blocked out the whole fucking world.

Castle moved as if he was going to move completely off of her, but she tightened her thighs and kept him still, nudging closer into the cave his body made with the mattress. His mouth touched her neck with a kiss both sloppy and earnest, and she giggled.

Castle jerked back as if shocked. “Beckett!”

She hid her face in the pillow and shoved hard on his shoulder, but he of course was rock hard, didn’t move an inch. In fact he crowded back into her and nipped at her ear, the side of her jaw, anything that wasn’t covered by pillow. She flung an arm out at him and he laughed, catching her wrist and bringing it to his lips.

“You giggled,” he sing-songed at her ear. “I heard it, Kate Beckett.”

“You’re a fucking asshole.”

He laughed again, wrapping his arm around her and dragging her closer. “I didn’t know you were ticklish there. Think I can find it again?”

“I’m not ticklish,” she muttered, shifting her face so she could fucking breathe. He smelled like joy, the insufferable spy, smelled like sweat and sex and her sheets. “You just caught me off-guard.”

“I like catching you off-guard,” he whispered. “Like on the street corner, in that alley. Like a few months ago when you woke up chained to the headboard.”

She shivered hard, remembering that swamp of confusion as it had burned off into a need so sharp and clear she’d come moments after he’d adjusted the nipple clamps.

“Fuck,” she breathed.

“The giggling is nice too,” he murmured, licking her jaw and sucking hard at her skin.

She grunted and swatted at him, tried to pull back, but it was too late. He’d marked her for sure. Rick Castle and his fucking hickeys. “You’re like a damn sixteen year old boy.”

“Then you are seriously in trouble.”

“What-?”

“Fucking a teenager is-”

“Oh, shut up,” she grunted, slapping him again. He caught her hand and pressed it over her head, bore down on her for a soul-stealing kiss.

She moaned and pressed her breasts into him; he stroked his hand down her body and cupped her sex.

“Oh, fuck,” she groaned.

“This is just for you, baby.”

She arched into his hand, his fingers stroking hard enough to light up her nerves again, pushing her arousal out through her whole body.

“For that adorable giggle,” he whispered.

She groaned and wanted to hate him, so wanted to shove his hand away and get out of bed and - oh, fuck, no she didn’t. She didn’t even want to want to. She just wanted more.

He penetrated her sex with two fingers, then three - three - she was pressed open, filled with the hard edges of his hand.

“You think,” he murmured. Trailed off. She could barely follow, so intense was the feeling of his fingers inside her. “You think more?”

“What?” she whispered, trying to open her eyes. She was trembling. “I’m so close. So close.”

He stretched inside her. Stretched - his fingers spread out and massaged her walls, a shock of intensity that made her cry out.

“Good or bad?” he husked.

“Good, good.” She moaned and pressed her arm over her eyes. “More.”

He nudged his nose into her arm and opened his mouth over hers, tongue sliding inside. She mewled, rising up, needing it, knowing somehow that there was another, deeper sensation on the other side of this one, something she had never touched before.

“One more, baby. One more.” He worked deeper inside her.

She gasped, pushing up hard, trembling around him.

“That’s four,” he whispered, mouth open at her cheek. “You can take all of it.”

“Oh, God,” she begged.

His whole hand - his hand - his thumb crushed over her clit and she screamed, orgasming hard around the stroke of his four fingers, clutching for him, for more than this, for more.

“There you go, there it goes, baby, hang on. I got you.”

She clutched his neck with one arm, gulping for breath, and felt the moment his angle changed. He made a slow, terrible push inside of her, and she felt the ripping burn of her cunt widening to take the large knuckle of his thumb.

She screamed and thrust herself up into him. He cursed her name, but his hand had sunk so deep.

“Stop, stop, wait,” he commanded. “Stay still, wait, baby. You gotta wait.”

She moaned, her body vibrating with tremors. She was going to die. She could feel him inside her, feel him inside her.

“Okay, you’re okay, shhhh.” He murmured against her ear, her cheek, skirting her lips with his, tiny touches, distracting touches. His breath along her jaw, her neck, a soft kiss, her body getting used to the intrusion of his hand.

A fist. His fist, loose but - but-

“Hush,” he whispered. “Let it wash over you. It’s just fine. Your body can take it.”

“Yeah,” she croaked. She sounded insane, cracked. She felt cracked. She felt rearranged, something so vital had been touched deep inside her, was still being touched, a raw nerve.

“Shhh, here we are. Here we are, love.” He was holding her down. He moved from her hip to her stomach and she felt the insistent press of his palms. Together. Inside and out.

“Oh, God,” she groaned. “I can’t-”

“You can. You can. Easy, love, easy. Here we go.”

He opened his hand inside her body.

She screamed and came violently, burying her teeth in his shoulder as her writhing made everything worse, tighter, deeper, dying.

Castle had her, had her; he had her. He pulled out slowly and she gasped, rolling up after him, but he had her.

He had her.

\-----

Castle found his clothes in the living room, eyed them speculatively, and decided a clean t-shirt would work. He slipped back into her bedroom and dropped the jeans and t-shirt on the floor before the dresser, opened up the bottom drawer. His sweat pants were dirty, he knew, so even though the jeans smelled slightly salty, he’d have to wear them.

T-shirt. Ah, here was a one of his black ones. Easy. Too bad, he really loved this Superman shirt she’d bought for him, but he thought he might have used it to clean off his hand. He had a lot of fucking laundry he was leaving around her place, and he ought to do something about that.

Especially since she had therapy in - oh, shit, an hour.

Oh, shit.

“Kate,” he hissed, knee-walking to the bed and pushing on the mattress to jostle her. “Kate Beckett. Up. Get up.”

She grunted and burrowed her face in the pillows, so he climbed on the bed and leaned in over her hunched up shoulder. He tongued her earlobe and then sank his teeth into her flesh.

Kate yelped and lashed out, but he caught her arm and drew her back in, kissing her ear, her neck. “Baby, you got King in an hour.”

“Necking?” she muttered.

He grinned and sucked lightly at the skin behind her ear so that her her breath caught. “Dr King. Therapy appointment so they reinstate you.”  
“Oh. Fuck.”

“I’ll get the shower started, you pee and brush teeth. I’ll heat up your coffee - my fault we let it get cold.”

“Fuck,” she moaned, wriggling out of bed now and stumbling as she rose. He pretended not to see that, (holy shit, he’d been able to fist her on their first fucking try) moved down the hall ahead of her to get the water going. He was barefoot and he practically ran into Cujo, alert and suspicious in the hallway.

“Knock it off,” he muttered, kneeing the dog away. He came out of the bathroom and headed for the kitchen, but not before he caught Kate in the hall. She stumbled and glared at him, but he leaned in and kissed her sweetly. “You knock it off as well, baby drag-”

She socked him hard in the gut and shoved him out of her way, slamming the bathroom door behind her.

Castle laughed, wheezing only a little as he carefully made his way towards the kitchen. Cujo was giving him that self-righteous wagging-tail wolf-grin, trotting away from him with his nose held high.

“You go - lay down or something, you mongrel.”

Castle moved to reheat her coffee.

\-----

It was so weird, walking out the door with him this morning. She had made breakfast too. Well and then they’d had dirty, kinky sexy and she’d fallen un-fucking-conscious in bed and he’d had to wake her up to shower again and get ready, but now they were leaving the apartment at the same time like this was normal.

Cujo was with Castle on his leash, Castle had a key in his pocket and a phone she could reach him on; she had her keys and pocket wallet and phone shoved into her jacket. He gave her a glancing kiss on the lips at the front door of the building, passed her the dog’s leash, and they went their separate ways.

He had to report in, he said, deal with Deleware and the plane and his father, finally. He’d been trying to take Cujo with him, but she hadn’t thought it was a good idea to have his father aware of the wolf. When she’d pointed that out to Castle, he’d looked so damn guilty, like he’d forgotten Cujo had been part of a spy mission once. Anyway, she had Cujo with her because King wouldn’t mind.

She still felt Castle’s lips brushing hers as she walked, that hurried, natural kiss, affection. Did they kiss for affection? She didn’t. Did she? It was kiss to kill, kiss to capture, kiss to seduce and promise and pleasure. She didn’t usually lean in and peck his cheek and walk away.

Did she? Had she? Now she couldn’t remember. Maybe she had, maybe even this morning in the kitchen when he’d slid up behind her, maybe she hadn’t been thinking, oh fuck me now, please. Maybe she’d been thinking, thirty seconds or this burns. Or something else equally mundane and trivial.

Well, fuck. She wasn’t thinking mundane and trivial now, was she? She was thinking she felt fucking rearranged, the very guts of her had been fingered and stroked and fondled, and she was sore. She was aching in such a very good way.

Suffice it to say, never had she done that before. She wasn’t sure he hadn’t, but Castle was always cool and in control when he was expanding her sexual horizons, and she’d learned from experience it was because he tightened up when he was excited.

She bit her lip, trying not to grin like a loon. Tightened up. He did though. He fucking got rigid and controlling and in control, like he went into mission mode on her, pushing them both past their known limits and into new territory. It was an inverse property law - the more fucking aroused and excited he got, the more he exerted that iron will of his, his severe discipline.

Fuck. Fuck, it was hot. She was squirming as she walked and the dog kept putting his nose to her thigh at the traffic lights, smelling her. “Shit, not cool, Cujo,” she muttered, pushing him away and thumping his nose for it.

He hung his head, that contrite act he loved to pull out for her, feigning a broken spirit. She wasn’t fooled. Castle did that too, humbled himself before her only to come out on top, all of it part of his master plan.

She crossed Madison Avenue in stages, the morning commute both thick and hellbent, pedestrian traffic not much better. She had a short leash on Cujo, who heeled perfectly, just as she’d trained him, and they walked past the subway stop at East 53rd. If she’d had her shield, she’d have taken him on the subway with her, now that he’d been K9 accredited. Damn.

“We’re just gonna go a little fast today,” she muttered, power walking it now as they were squeezed out onto Fifth Avenue. St Thomas Church was dead ahead and she crossed over to walk in its lee, the sun from the east bright on her face, warming her skin. Cujo’s tail was curled at his back but it kept hitting her thigh, so close did he have to stay with her.

Good dog. He was doing just fine. She hadn’t meant to get him caught up in commuter rush hour this morning; he was a damn fine dog, police-trained, but she didn’t think it was fair to make him. To push him. He wasn’t a civilian, her Cujo, and she knew it wasn’t right to try to impose civilized standards. He was a wild dog, a wolf in a dog’s strait-jacket, and she had to be willing to give him space.

To let him leave and come back to her on his own time. 

And well, stuck in the city, he wasn’t getting that space. She sent him off with her father half the time because Jim Beckett had a roaming heart. He kept disappearing upstate, for what she hadn’t found out, but if he took the dog, then at least there’d be a Lassie to run get help when he fell down the well.

They traveled up Fifth past the Trump Tower, the Apple store, came up on Central Park. They cut through at the 65th Transverse, and she took the jogging trails, able to wind around morning runners and dog-walkers, keeping up her pace. Cujo appreciated the shortcut as well, his nose high as he sniffed, nostrils flaring wide and contracting, absorbing every scent.

They passed Tavern on the Green and came out on 66th, up Broadway past another fucking Apple store, heavily in the theatre district now, less early morning commuters, but actually quite a lot of people. She analyzed them as she walked, assessing dress and speech pattern, picking up hints from their gestures.

Castle had taught her some of this, she realized. They rode the subway late at night when they were both too restless to sleep, back when he’d been stuck here for three months. The fucking had been intense, but they had both instinctively backed off, feeling that frisson of terror at how necessary that connection had been, how close to addiction they both were.

Riding the subway and people-watching, getting off in Brighton Beach or Coney Island or even fucking Castle Hill in the Bronx just because they could, because it was one in the morning and the trains didn’t stop anywhere else, and they talked about people, other people, anyone else but themselves.

She spotted a red-haired older woman, the hair so perfect that it had to be a piece, shambling home with an older man in a tux. She wore her slinky, loud dress with every bit of confidence and grace that Beckett never quite could, and she toasted the man as he laughed at her joke.

Beaming blue eyes, crinkled at the corners, cracked and heavy make-up, now that Kate had drawn closer. Cujo whined and nudged at the leash in a surprising display of dog, but Kate pulled her attention from the couple, the woman was an actress, she thought, Broadway, soap operas, something her mother would have known.

“Heel, Cujo,” she said firmly. The dog turned its head with the older couple and Kate kept him at her side, kept going. 

Through the theatre district now, eating up the blocks with their swift stride, passing more churches and restaurants, finally closer to King’s private practice office on Edgar Allan Poe Street.

At the front door, the revolving door that was already spun in motion, Kate took a breath and tightened the leash another loop around her hand.

“All right, well. Gotta do this.”

Cujo bumped his head into her thigh as if to say, stop stalling.

Right. 

She went inside.

\-----

"Good morning. And who do we have here?" 

Kate dropped a hand to the dog's head, rubbed behind his ears. "Cujo. He's trained; you can pet him."

Dr King smiled softly and held out his hand, palm up, fingers relaxed to let Cujo sniff him. Obviously knew dogs. Cujo licked his fingers and wrist, even though Kate had been trying to break him of it, and King didn't seem to mind, petting the dog easily.

"Beautiful dog. Part wolf?"

"Czechoslovakian wolfdog," she answered. "A breed of dog with close ties. Castle found him and dumped him with me." She fingered the dog's collar, the speciality leather that Castle had bought, blended into Cujo’s mostly brown coloring. Black fringed his head and rump, dotted his paws. He was a beautiful dog. "I've gotten him police-trained, sometimes he rides with us in Vice."

"That's exceptional work, Kate."

She lifted her head to him, surprised. "Oh, well. Thanks. He's good at taking command."

"Shall we sit?"

She swallowed and moved towards the chair by the window, sat slowly. She gestured to Cujo and had him lie down at her feet, and then she stroked the backs of her fingers under his jaw and at his throat, his favorite spot, so that his eyes squinted and his mouth closed and he was happy. So easy to make Cujo happy. 

She grabbed for one of his triangle-shaped ears, tugging a little in fondness, and he yawned wide and dropped down to the floor. His head layered over his front paws, relaxed, even though his eyes watched Dr King as the man sat in his own chair.

"Very good dog," King answered. "I remember hearing about him. Rick came to me after a debrief to say he'd kept the dog; he couldn't bring himself to kill it."

Kate froze, her spine straight and barely touching the back of the chair. "Kill it."

"What he's had to do, before, when things - well, let's talk about getting you reinstated, shall we?"

Killing it?

"First thing - your police record is exemplary, Katherine. I'm impressed by the work you've put into this, the professionalism but also your tendency to go above and beyond the call of duty."

"I'm a workaholic," she stated flatly.

"There's nothing wrong with that," King rejoined. He had an easy way about him that she liked, couldn't help herself. So that even her shock-value statements rolled right over him. "The work is a calling, I understand completely. A healthy person can be a workaholic, so long as you get enough sleep, doesn't affect your health."

She lifted an eyebrow and King smiled slightly; he already knew then. Knew she was affected, that she pushed too far. She just - didn't have a line. She had no lines. Castle had shown her that himself, how her boundaries were more like soft, permeable borders, or suggestions that had been acculturated over time.

She didn't know where the line was because she had no line.

"I just work," she said finally. "And I'd like to get back to it ASAP."

"Of course. Your police record - as I was saying, very complimentary. And then we come to the notations made after your performance reviews in which each commanding officer says something about their personal feelings-"

"They hate me."

He sighed. "No, Kate, they do not hate you. They're concerned for your health - as I suggested. Sleep, regular meals, outside interests. Personally, I don't believe outside interests are required, nor are they necessarily the realm of workplace relationships, and with your - unique? - situation with Agent Castle, I commend your reservation."

"Are you saying I'm ideal?" she muttered. Ideally suited for the spy's regular fuck. Great.

"I'm saying you are a smart, intelligent woman who knows what needs to be done - and what doesn't. That being said, you know you have to control your anger, but your sense of isolation in combination with your high intelligence doesn't serve you."

She gaped at him. No one had ever said she was an arrogant bitch in such a nice way before.

"Just because you are ahead of the class, Kate, doesn't mean you are allowed to step on the rest of them on your way to your goal."

She had to remember to breathe.

"Can we agree on that?" he asked. "This will all go much easier on us both if we can agree that people deserve respect, regardless of their ability or intelligence, regardless of your superiority to those skills."

"Yes," she croaked. "Respect."

"Richard has some of the same - issues. Being faster, smarter, better than everyone. It's taken diligent discipline for him to suppress his natural instincts so that he can blend smoothly with the mission he's called to do. I might suggest you think of your job situation in the same way."

"The same way."

"You're bright and ambitious, Kate, and everyone can see it. But being friendly will smooth your way - it is a healthy tool to achieve your ends. This is your covert operation - to become a homicide detective, correct?-"

"To solve my mother's case," she jumped in. Her heart was pounding. The dog had lifted his head and was looking at her, stupid dog. Telling on her. "My - my mission? My whole life is - is that. Find out who killed her, had her murdered. She was - it was a hit, we think. I think. But that's my whole reason..."

"Yes," King answered softly. "I can see that."

"And you said. At work. That I need to lie?"

"Not lie. You need to smooth your way. Use amiability, openness, friendship, a smile - use them as tools, Kate. Develop them, hone them, just as you would marksmanship or self-defense. In fact, think of those characteristics as self-defense."

"Self-defense. Smiling. Self-defense."

He smiled. "You're here. Talking to me. Even rather against your will, you feel enough at ease to tell me two things which normally put people off: 1, you are a workaholic and 2, you've dedicated your life to justice for your mother. All I did was smile, be friendly."

"Holy shit," she muttered, staring back at him. All that open, sunny skies look was a calculation? It was.

She could use it too.

"I... see."

"I'm not asking you to be cheerful or bubbly or a ditz. Don't be something you're not. Just be more than you are."

"More. I'm already... I don't know how much more I can give before I... break."

"It's not giving," he said. "It's composing your face. It's observation of others. It's a skill set, Kate. That's what I'm telling you. You don't have to give a second thought to them, not an ounce more. They already take so much. I've been doing this a long time; I know how much gets taken from you. What I'm suggesting will actually give to you. If you'll try it."

She pressed her palms to her knees, tried to fathom what he was asking of her. Telling her. She felt almost like he was saying, program yourself, and hadn't she been doing that already? Recognizing what the job required of her to get where she wanted to be and then doing it, no matter the cost. This was just - the personal side of things. Or the human side. Rather than the specific physical skills she'd developed.

Personal skills. 

"Okay," she said finally. "Am I - that bad?"

"No, not at all. You're much more than you think. Your personal reviews from peers are glowing. You're already doing it with those you work alongside. It's just superior officers, and sometimes those with lower intelligence - a sense that you're dismissing them. Which you most likely are."

"Yeah," she said softly. "The detectives who - even officers working the street - they don't care at all about the victims. They're disrespectful, they have nicknames, they make crass jokes. It - gets to me."

"Because your mother was a victim. I do understand. They don't know your story, so they don't know to be more respectful. You don't have to tell them your story - I'm not asking you to give - but do keep their perspective at the forefront of your mind. You have secrets to keep, and you are not required to divulge any of them, but the ability to successfully keep those secrets partly requires a friendly face. What we call being civilized. And that - that - I know you can do."

Be civilized. Don't be a bitch. Be-

"You're thinking too hard," he said quietly, a soft smile. "Your mind is racing. Breathe, relax. This is a step by step process. This is being a good covert agent. You want to get to homicide, solve her case, then you take the steps necessary to make that happen. This is a step. Be who you need to be to get there."

"You're telling me not to be myself. To - to change for other people."

"No. I'm telling you to change for you. To achieve your goals. To maintain your selfhood. If you continue on as you are, fighting the whole world, fighting and struggling and never taking the hand offered in help, then you will not achieve your goals. I want to partner with you in achieving your goals."

"But then it's... how is that an achievement at all? If I have to get help. If I can't do it. How am I-"

"The goal is met, is it not? The end result occurs. How is that not an achievement?"

She couldn't think; he'd knotted her up so that her thoughts were circular and colliding. 

"Do you want your mother's case to be solved or do you want for you to be the one to solve it?"

She shut down.

Gone. Just like that. Eyes closed, brain off, not hearing, gone. Escape. 

\-----


	22. Chapter 22

Whining.

Wet against her fingers.

She found herself staring down at the dog, his head in her lap and his tongue bathing her fingers, the strange animal muscle of his tongue, the teeth that lightly nipped her nails as he whined again, careful and still and his head in her lap.

Cujo. 

She stroked the fur lightly back from his muzzle. Soft. Pure white that dirtied to brown at the hinge of his jaw. Good dog. 

The overhead light was off, the blinds were open so that the sunlight was on her face, almost too warm. She lifted her head and saw Dr King sitting opposite her, his eyes closed, breathing easy, asleep but not asleep.

She dropped her gaze back to the dog and rubbed his ears, the soft fur back from his nose and between his eyes, the backs of his ears now and scratching until his tail wagged.

"Kate." Not asleep then. 

"Yeah." She would have to say. Explain somehow. She had no words for this; she had to go. "I need to get out of here."

"That was only five minutes, Kate. Last time was fifteen."

She jerked her head up, stared at Dr King. "Last - time?"

"Your initial consultation with me. You don't remember? No, no, no cause for alarm. It happens, self-defense mechanism. Fifteen minutes isn't the longest I've seen, though I did expect longer this time. I'm honored."

"Hon-honored?" Fifteen minutes. She'd blacked out for fifteen minutes?

"You trusted me right from the beginning. Fifteen minutes. And then today, the shorter time indicates a greater willingness to hear my advice. I'm honored."

She was floored.

"Cujo is helpful to have here," he said then. "From now on, can I ask that he attend your sessions?"

"Cujo."

"If it's convenient. I remember you saying that your father sometimes has him?"

"Yes, he - does. I'll try to bring Cujo with me." The dog gave a little nip of her fingers in response to his name, asking for attention, and she glanced down at him again, rubbed behind his ears. "He thinks he's a lapdog sometimes. He tries to sit on me."

King chuckled. "He's huge."

"Sometimes I let him anyway," she sighed, smiling down at her dog.

"Kate, I'd like for you to tell me what triggered your withdrawal."

She swallowed. "I call it - call it shutdown. I hear you, I just... can't."

"Yes, I understand very well. Richard does the same. He calls it his stony face. I'm sure you've experienced it. A common occurrence with those who are extremely adept at compartmentalization."

"Rick?" she tumbled out, stunned. "No. I've never - stony face?"

King looked back at her, as if at a loss for words.

"He does it too? I'll-" She had been about to say I'll ask him about it but fuck, how was that at all a good idea?

"Well. That is interesting."

"I don't do it at work," she said fiercely.

"No, I know you don't. Because work holds no conflicts with the main goal. Work is the main goal."

"I... yes, I guess so." She felt those thoughts settle on her, fitting. "It's where I want to be."

"And today?"

"I don't want to talk about my mom."

"I didn't ask about your mom."

She sucked in a breath.

"Yes, very good. Breathe, relax. Nothing bad happens to you when you speak, Kate. Not here. Nothing bad happens. I will reinstate you when your hour is up, just as I promised, and you aren't even required to see me again. I will be sad to see you go, but this is an unconditional relationship."

"What does that mean? Unconditional."

"You are not required to meet a set of behavioral expectations to gain my endorsement or support."

"Oh." She let out a breath and realized it was something like a laugh. "Like Castle."

"Like Castle," he echoed, and somehow there was a question in it. She heard it, and she realized it was true, what she'd said.

"He doesn't ask anything of me. Never has. It's liberating." He didn't ask. He took. He took everything he wanted and left. But. But it was liberating; she reveled in him. Fuck, she did. "It's a relief."

"A chance to breathe."

"Yes." 

"Then yes," King said quietly. "Here, in this place with me, you can breathe, Kate. Even if that's all you do here. I'm glad for it."

She was gulping down air; she might hyperventilate, she was breathing so fast. No one had ever said, You are enough. This is enough.

Rest. 

She didn't want to talk. "How much time is left?"

"Twenty-five minutes."

That could be good if she let it, that could be good. 

Kate curled her knees up into the chair and laid her head down on the arm, let her hand dangle down to the dog, stroking his fur. Breathing. Nothing else was required of her but to keep breathing.

\-----

"I make only one request," Dr King said as he signed her release.

Kate froze. She knew it. She had known it would require something in return.

"Go straight to the 12th Precinct and hand this to them. Take your qualification for recert on the weapons range today. Get it all done at once. You'll feel immensely better, even if you're still technically suspended another day."

She let out a breath and grinned. "I can do that. For sure."

He handed her the official form, and she folded it carefully. King capped his pen and set it on his desk, walked her to the door of his office. "I do hope to see you again, Kate. If only to talk about Castle - quite fascinating, your side of things. I'm not sure anyone knows the man you do."

"Oh, I don't see that much of him," she said quickly, hurrying out of his office. She threw him a glance over her shoulder. "But I - probably will be back. I have to make an appointment, anyway, bring in proof to my sergeant." 

King smiled, wide, easy, the kind that made her relax. She memorized it, his body language and the hue of his eyes, trying to find ways to try it on herself. He was right. Just smile. Fuck, it was simple.

King chuckled. "Very nice. You look like you could cheerfully murder me. I'd say that was an improvement."

Kate laughed, surprising herself with it, and this time King's whole demeanor changed, something incredibly still falling over him. His hands came up and clasped one of hers, pressing, not a handshake but a touch. No one touched her. Castle touched her and that was about sex (except, she thought wildly, when it was a slide of his lips in a glancing good-bye kiss, or a morning hello, or a hand at her hip as he moved around her in the kitchen, except when it wasn't, and sometimes it wasn't, lots of times it wasn't, he just touched).

"Make an appointment, Kate," the man finally said. King patted her hand and released her. "Make an appointment and I will hope for you to appear. With that laughter, and the dog. Yes?"

"You might get one or the other, not both," she smiled back.

King chuckled and she had the sudden instinct that he wanted to hug her. She stepped back, Cujo coming to his feet now where he'd stopped and sat perfectly still for her. She guided the dog towards the receptionist's desk, couldn't help taking a look behind her at Dr King. 

He was staring thoughtfully after her, something wistful on his face.

Fuck, she did not want to be like that. All of it out there for everyone to see, to know. How he wanted-

Oh, hell. Hadn't he just said? Use it as a tool.

"I know what you're doing," she called back to him, narrowing her eyes. "It won't work. If I come, I come. You can't make me feel beholden to you."

Dr King laughed then, his face altered and smoothed and he waved his hand at her, turned around to go back inside his office.

But damn it. Already it had worked on her. She'd be coming back; she could already tell.

\-----

She did exactly as King had suggested, smiling to herself as she opened the great glass door of the lobby and came in like a civilian. On the advice of my therapist... She went through security with the dog, Cujo only slightly indignant at the skimming search of the guard's hands, and then she headed downstairs for the ballistics gun range. 

Requals first. 

Dogs weren't allowed on the range, but the rangemaster had seen Cujo in action and allowed her to tie the leash at his workstation and leave him there. She got to one knee and whispered Stay in his ear, that tender command that meant it was for his own safety. He heeded her, dropping to his haunches, and the rangemaster came back with a rental weapon and the requal body map to pin on the target.

She thanked him, pulled on the noise suppressors and the safety glasses first, the tight fit around her head like an embrace. Already, that fast, in the zone. She took the tray out onto the range floor, the narrow hall off which the gun cubbies lined up. She was number nine, and she slid inside the booth, her heart beating a little fast, and she unfurled the crisp white sheet of the body map.

Beckett was so ready for this. She'd needed this. Needed it. Control and master of her own fate. She clipped the body to the target and pushed the button, watched it head down the long course for the end of the line.

Well, not the end of the line. Start in, move out. Short range first, get her bearings, sight her aim, find her way.

Beckett took the weapon and the clip, slid the clip home in the base, and cradled it in both hands, sighting down the barrel.

Fuck, it felt so damn good. She would bring Castle's gun here the moment she was allowed back on the free range.

She fired.

\-----

The rangemaster had been impressed with Cujo, impressed and a little indignant as well. He apparently had tried his hand at commanding the dog himself - and failed.

“He didn’t do a thing wrong, but he didn’t do a thing I told him to. Let me pet him, good-natured, but if I said sit, beg whatever, he didn’t move an inch.”

“He’s trained as such,” Beckett murmured, glancing at Cujo. Her fingers itched for the leash still in the rangemaster’s hand. “He won’t obey anyone but me. And-” Kate pressed her lips together and unfurled the tight fist of her hand. Cujo came to attention and nudged under her fingers.

“And?”

“And - those who - well, the K9 officer who gave us the training,” she said, attempting to smooth it over. “Of course.”

“He won’t respond to me at all? Even if you told him to?”

“Even then,” she answered. “Wouldn’t do any good if some criminal could tell my dog to rip my throat out, would it?”

Rangemaster gave her a cold look, and she tried to hand him the target. But he still had the leash in his hands, not giving it over. He wanted something, and she didn’t understand what.

“Sir?” She cleared her throat and the rangemaster finally took the body map from her fingers. He had to sign it, date it, or else it wouldn’t count. Perfect score. Perfect score because she excelled at those physical skills required to be an ideal police officer and detective. Skill set.

She smiled. 

The rangemaster smiled back. Took a pen. Scribbled his signature and the date, folded the body map. “You did good with this one. Impressive.”

He wouldn’t hand back the map.

“Thank you,” she said finally, still smiling. She had to release her fists, make an effort not to say something acerbic and cutting. Because she saw it now - the rangemaster was pissed off that her dog wouldn’t respond to him, that he wasn’t master here too. She had to - do something to smooth this over; she had to make friends of those who she might need later. 

Hone her skill set. What soothed the mind of a dominant male who had just been shown up by a young female detective?

“You know, it’s funny,” she started, reaching out pet Cujo like he was any old dog. “He got left at my doorstep. He was so wild and aggressive; he would bite and bark and disturb my neighbors. It was a fucking nightmare. But I couldn’t kick him out.”

The rangemaster relaxed his shoulders a little, the idea of her in over her head with this dog.

“When it got bad enough, I finally asked the K9 department if they could teach me a few things. And it went from there.”

“Smart,” the rangemaster said then, handing over the leash. “You did good, Beckett. And - here as well.” He folded the target map into a tight square and slid it inside an envelope, sealing it with a long lick.

Her skin crawled, fucking asshole who needed to be better than her. But she took it, smiled again. “Thank you. Come, Cujo.”

The dog came at her side and nudged his nose into the back of her thigh. The rangemaster saw it and smiled indulgently. “He breaks discipline every now and then, doesn’t he?”

Not perfect; you don’t get a perfect score on this one. He was pleased, and she was fucking furious; she wanted to slam her knee into his balls and make him hurt for it.

But the rangemaster had signed her target officially, and he was pleased with himself and her as well; she had made a contact. She had figured it out.

As she left his office and headed out, target in her hands, dog at her side, she found herself pulling her phone out of her pocket, wanting to call King. 

She didn’t. It was a near thing. Shit, it was a near thing. But she rolled her eyes at herself and headed up for the elevator and her sergeant’s desk.

She was getting reinstated.

\-----

Her sergeant wasn’t so easily wooed.

“Why the fuck are you smiling?” he growled, snatching the paper from her hands.

She pressed her lips together, somehow amused by his discombobulation. 

Discom- 

Fuck, Castle was inside her head entirely too often these days. He’d have said something like that; those were the kind of words he used regularly. He came out with those kinds of things, like he was dropping it into conversation to see a reaction.

“Fine, Beckett. All in order. But you’re not allowed back until the end of your suspension, so don’t think you get to hang around here today. Off with you.”

She kept her mouth in a tight line and let her face go sour; her sergeant huffed and handed over her gun and shield, the ID tag they all used to get into the parking garage, and finally the keys to her squad car. 

Beckett pocketed them with relish, and fast, trying not to let on how entirely desperate she was to have those things. Cujo nudged the back of her knee and Kate dropped a hand down to the dog’s head, rubbing, soothing herself as well.

“What?” her sergeant blistered. “Get out of here, Beckett. Not until Thursday.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Beckett got out of there, fast as she could, heading down the cramped hallway towards the elevators. Her heart was racing, the blood rushing under her skin, warm and vital. She was ready, more than ready, to get back here. To be where she belonged.

The elevator doors opened and she stepped on to an empty car, the dog coming with her on his leash, at heel at her feet. She pressed the button for the garage, wanting to go down and get her stuff from the patrol car, a bag of clothes she could wash before returning to work. The elevator lurched as it started down and she sank back against the railing of the elevator car, loose, relaxed.

Kate felt so good, she scratched Cujo behind his ears, rubbing him fondly, smiling down at the dog and his tongue hanging out, his ears flicking up and around at every sound.

“You are a good boy, aren’t you?” she murmured. “But I’m afraid you’re gonna have to learn how to obey Rick too. He thinks you’re too territorial.”

Cujo whuffed low in his throat, that warning sound she’d learned to heed, though it made her smile, how alike they were, and she patted his head and lifted up, gave him room. Gave him his space.

The elevator doors opened up on the floor for the Zoo Lock-up, and instinctively, Beckett backed up, giving room even as she lifted her head.

She froze.

Castle didn’t. 

Deleware sure as fucking hell didn’t freeze. 

Cujo snapped a bark that shook the whole elevator car and made her snatch his collar, clutching him tightly to keep control over him. 

“What’s the deal with your dog?” the officer asked, escorting Deleware inside the elevator.

“He likes the way criminals taste,” Beckett answered sharply. She flicked a glance to Castle as he stepped onto the elevator.

Deleware snorted and held up his un-cuffed hands. “Not a criminal. No matter how hard you tried.”

Castle put himself between her and Deleware and although she was irritated with him for it, Castle was at least another body between Cujo and his sworn enemy. She curled her fingers tighter in his collar and shifted, but Castle was right at her side, a hand coming to her hip and digging fingers in the waistband of her jeans.

She paid attention, knowing it meant something, that Castle wanted her on guard.

Deleware was being released back into the wild.

The elevator went down to the main processing floor and opened its doors. The officer - an older man that Beckett knew only by sight - nudged Deleware out of the car and towards the desk where the outtake sergeant would sign the paperwork, give the prisoner over into custody or out on his own recognizance. 

And then she realized. 

Castle. Castle was the one taking custody of Deleware. Castle had come to the Twelfth to spring Deleware out of prison because they were colleagues, they were agents together, and this was how it worked.

Beckett hesitated at the elevator door, but she wasn’t going to let Castle and Deleware throw her off her game. She stayed in the car and punched the button for the basement, ignoring them.

Castle glanced back at her once, something in his gaze she didn’t understand, but the doors closed, cutting him off.

\-----

“No more,” she said sharply to the dog.

Cujo stopped growling, content that he’d gotten his message across - he was fucking unhappy to have left Deleware alive back there.

“Me too,” she muttered, moving through the parking garage quickly now. She wanted to just get her shit and get out of here.

The squad car was in a new parking spot, which irritated her; it meant someone else had driven it the last couple days. She popped the trunk and snagged the bag that kept her spare clothes - all dirty now; she rarely went home - and she slipped it on over her shoulder. Cujo put his nose over the bumper and sniffed eagerly at the trunk.

Kate let out a breath, amused by him, and she bent down to tug him back, close the trunk once more. 

“Okay, let’s get out of here.” 

Cujo bounded ahead of her down the row, his bark echoing off the concrete in an uncharacteristic display of bad behavior. She followed after, letting him have the slack, not even caring that he was making her practically jog. They both needed to burn off some of that tense energy after that damn elevator ride.

Kate almost felt good, running between the rows of squad cars and concrete pillars, the dog joyfully scrambling ahead of her, the leash taut. They were racing through the exit; she tossed a shouted thanks to the gate guard, flashing her badge as she passed, and they came out onto the alley between the buildings. She could breathe again, she was reinstated and she had her damn gun and this was-

Deleware.

Cujo launched himself forward and Kate cut out a sharp command, gripping the leash and stepping backwards. Deleware turned and raised his arm, deadly intent in the flash of his cold dead eyes, and Kate panicked.

“Cujo!” 

The dog stopped; he actually stopped, and she ran to him, snaking her fingers in his collar even as he snarled and strained the limits of his training.

“How unfortunate,” Deleware said. His voice was clear, every note hitting its mark. He pocketed something that she could have fucking sworn was a knife.

How the fuck did he get a knife?

“Next time, I shall take my opportunity when it presents itself,” he said then, stepping closer. As if testing Cujo, goading him.

Kate stood up straighter, but she couldn’t let go of the dog; she couldn’t. Where the fuck was Castle and why the hell had he let this bastard lose him? “There won’t be a next time,” she said woodenly. “Cujo is under my control.”

“I didn’t mean Cujo,” he said smoothly. His eyes trailed over her, stilled on her neck. “Though it looks like Agent Castle beat me to it.”

She stiffened. “The fuck you-”

“Fuck you? Yes, actually. I would quite enjoy that. You, however, would not. I would be sure of that.”

Kate’s mouth dropped open.

“You fucking son of a bitch.” Castle.

Kate turned on her heel but she was too late. Castle launched himself at Deleware, moving past her so fast she couldn’t even reach out and grab him. He hit Deleware in a leap, snarling, and his fist went first into Del’s face, a sickening crunch, and then a round into his gut.

But Deleware was good, just as maybe, and he got in a kick that made Kate jerk forward, horror cresting in her throat, reaching for them.

They were a vicious knot of grunting bodies, a sudden snarl, a smash of a fist, a head slamming the sidewalk. Kate got a hand on someone’s shoulder, but a kick glanced her thigh and made her stumble back. The dog was leaping around her, circling in close only to dance away again, and the leash was tangled in her hand.

“Castle,” she shouted, trying again to wade into the fray. “Castle, please-”

She hunched over and snagged his bicep, only to get an elbow flung into her chest, a fist crashing into her cheek, knocking her on her ass, sprawled flat out. She heaved in a breath that was gone, wind knocked out of her, her head pulsing with pain against the pavement. 

Kate swallowed, shifted to sit up. The dog was free, leash trailing, and Cujo barked incessantly, ringing in her ears. The two men were beating each other into a pulpy mess, blood smearing the sidewalk, the crunch of bone under fist and knee.

She dragged her feet under her and stood, breathing hard past the crushed feeling in her chest. She took a step forward and had to jump back as the two men rolled.

Castle rose up, face dissembled by blood, and he drew back a fist and pummeled Deleware.

“Rick,” she croaked out. She cleared her throat to shout. “Rick.”

His eyes cut to her and he jumped off Deleware, rushing to her side to put her at his back. She stumbled as he pushed her away, his face towards Deleware even as he snapped his fingers for the dog.

But Cujo wouldn’t come. Deleware was on his feet as well, looking crooked, as if something was out of joint, and the dog crouched, ready to leap.

“Cujo,” she called. “Cujo, come. Come here. Right now.”

The dog snapped an angry bark, but the bit was in his mouth now and he was backing off, the same backing off that Castle was doing, neither of them wanting to lose sight of Deleware.

“Grab his leash, Kate,” Castle said quickly. “Now. Deleware, you get the fuck back to your master.”

“Your master too, you know.” Deleware straightened up but he was still crooked, bent somehow. “Your fucking master more than he’s mine. Don’t forget that.”

Beckett stepped out from behind Castle, moved right into Deleware’s line of sight, and she snagged Cujo’s leash. She didn’t care; she fucking didn’t care. He could-

“Ahh, lovely, darling. Do the bruises go all the way down? Does he bite your cunt? I’d slide my knife-”

She put her fist in his mouth, felt his teeth against her knuckles and his head snapping back, and in that same moment, Castle tackled him once more. Deleware went down and Kate stood there, breathing hard, hand pulsing with pain and bloody, and Castle beat him. 

Deleware was laughing. A terrible sound, his laughter, and it broke something.

Kate knew better this time, but she reached out and gripped the back of Castle’s shirt and jerked, jerked. “Castle. Castle. Castle-”

He delivered one last fist, a sucker punch to the gut that made Deleware groan his laughter, but he was still, he was still laughing.

Castle stood, and even though Castle was standing - they had lost here. They had lost.

Her knuckles felt swollen already. She sucked in a breath and found the end of Cujo’s leash, stepped back. The sound of grit under her shoes on the sidewalk drew Castle’s eyes to hers.

They both knew it; they had lost. Whatever, however it had happened, neither of them were in control here.

Deleware, a fucking mess on the sidewalk, laughing, he had won.

“I have to - to get him...” Castle let out a long, terrible sigh and closed his eyes. “Fuck. You need to go, Kate.”

“I’m staying,” she got out.

“No.”

“Yes.”

He opened his eyes, bleak terror in them that scared her. She’d never seen him like this. 

“I’m staying,” she insisted. Her chest hurt. Her face. Her hand. “I’m staying, Rick.”

Deleware had stopped laughing.

\-----


	23. Chapter 23

For the first time in his life, Agent Castle had no idea what to do.

Beckett stood her ground, the dog standing at bristling attention by her side, both of them looking completely ready to fuck someone up, while Deleware was on the pavement, beaten into a bloody mess, still laughing from time to time.

He had to get the sick fucker off the street, away from the NYPD's cameras, and do it before he himself got arrested for assault and battery. Beckett wasn't helping, her stony disregard, the angry welt on her face.

She'd gotten hit. One of them.

He was still roiling with anger, free-floating, loud explosions of pure hatred inside his head so that every time he thought he had a handle on it, he heard Deleware's voice licking along Kate's spine, vile and nasty and shockingly intimate.

No one should speak to Beckett like that, but Castle knew it happened, repeatedly, working the streets for Vice. He'd heard men say dirty things to her. 

But none of those pathetic losers had been Agent Deleware, a man he'd - before now - thought mild and tame and a desk jockey.

He was not.

He was sighing out a laugh into the afternoon sky even as Castle stood there, immobile.

Beckett wouldn't leave. He had to call this in to his father.

She had her fingers curled under Cujo's collar, but her eyes were wary on Deleware. She didn't trust him to handle this, and no fucking wonder. He'd been the one who had gotten Deleware released; he'd been the one who had assumed the fucking asshole had gone home when they'd parted in front of the Twelfth. 

Only the sick - fuck, fuck, the sick, disgusting things he'd said just wouldn't get out of Castle's head. He needed to - to put his hands on Del's neck and twist until it snapped and his tongue popped out and his eyes bulged and his-

Fuck. 

"Fuck," he said shakily. He was going to throw up.

Beckett shifted on her feet and glanced down the alley, the side exit for the parking garage, and then back to the shadow where the street connected. "Castle, you have to get this show on the road."

She was handling this so much better than himself. He kept hearing that voice, that voice, Do the bruises go all the way down? Does he bite your cunt? 

Beckett reached into his back pocket and plucked the phone out, turned him so that Deleware was no longer in his line of sight. "Castle. Call your father. A cab. Something. We have to move. Off the street."

He blinked and took his phone, fingers dialing automatically, held the phone up to his ear. His heart was thundering in his head, and Beckett was keeping watch on Deleware while Castle had most of his back to the man.

He really didn't like that feeling but every time he saw the man's face, something crawled across his soul. Something dark. He'd never known Deleware to be so - to be so-

"Stop," she said. "Don't. He's fucked up. Not us."

Not us. But-

The phone clicked over to the automatic tree and he left his message by rote, not even thinking. "This is Blackbird. Requesting pick-up. Locate source."

He hung up, slid the phone back into his own pocket, everything still thrashing inside him. He didn't want to do this, he couldn't do this, but it looked like they were doing this.

"Kate. You shouldn't - shouldn't be here when they come."

"Don't. I'm going with you if only to keep you separated. You'll kill him."

"I'll kill him," he said, heard himself, how flat his voice was. How he'd shut down. He couldn't see clear of it; he had gone to some new place, mission mode for his - his rage. He didn't understand. If he was being a spy, being the good spy, he wouldn't have snapped at a few fucking words.

He didn't understand. He was - broken or something. He couldn't get a grip; his guts were sliding around inside him.

Beckett wrapped her hand around his wrist and squeezed. "He's watching you."

Castle would kill him. He would. It was coming. He'd do it in the pick-up car and feel nothing but relief when it happened. "You shouldn't be here," he rasped. "Beckett, you need to-"

"I am not leaving you alone with him," she hissed.

Black was going to be there. Black would be there and Beckett would-

"You can't," he despaired. "You can't. My father-"

"I can fucking handle your father," she muttered. "Grow a pair, Richard. If I leave you with him, your father will be the least of your problems."

\-----

"Get up," he said. The words were dull, and both Deleware and Beckett were watching him, studying him. Good reason. Something was wrong with him. "Get up, Del. Not on the fucking street."

The car would be coming. The phone had pinged him back an alert text; it was on its way. Beckett stood with the dog midway between himself and Deleware but it was fine now. He had already snapped, the breaking had been done. He was either doing this or he would cut Del's throat when she wasn't looking.

He wasn't sure which. It was still up in the air.

"You'd better stand up and walk with me," he said, sliding his gaze to Del. The man was on his ass, arms hooked around his drawn up knees, catching his breath through the blood and snot of his broken nose. Castle's detachment wasn't cool, but hot. Rage had blinded him, cut him off; he was cut free, strangely free.

He was broken.

"Rick."

He blinked and his gaze focused on her, his attention gathering up into the direct vision of Kate Beckett standing before him.

"Hey," she said quietly. "Rick. You need to pull it together."

"It's together," he said clearly.

"He's watching you, watching us," she murmured. Castle could see Deleware from where he stood, Beckett and the dog between them, and Deleware was bowed over, spitting blood to the pavement, hocking it up from his rattling chest. 

Del pushed to one knee, as if testing it out. He looked pleased with himself behind the disfigured face.

"He's set you up for this," Beckett said quietly. "Don't you see that? He said that shit to get you to lose it, to see what would send you over the edge, because of last time, and now you've done it."

"He doesn't matter," Castle answered. Nothing was getting through to him, nothing. He felt curiously raw. Skin broken open and every nerve exposed so that it was all surface, everything right there, everything in one cascading white noise of rage. The television on and snow on his channels. All snow. Too much information, nothing getting through.

"Rick. Castle. Listen to me a moment. This was all calculated. Just as he did to get me outside my building. It's calculated. You get your fucking act together and pretend it doesn't get to you, pretend it's not important, that it's nothing more than professional-"

"Professional?" he hissed.

She didn't even flinch. "Be a damned professional. Make some shit up. Deleware revealed himself to a civilian. To me. Totally blew your cover with me-"

"Black already knows that you know."

"And now Deleware knows that I'm a fucking weakness for you."

"It's not a weakness at all. I feel very strong."

Beckett stared at him.

"I'll find a way to play it," he said then. He was strong. He could think this through. He could think. Because Deleware was going to report back to his father that Castle had lost it, and there had to be a reason-

"Deleware approached me without your permission," Beckett said quickly. "Use that. Do you let anyone else run your assets? Do you let anyone else in on your mission? Or are you a solo-"

"I work solo," he growled. But he had Eastman covering his ass, usually. He had Eastman even though his father had tried more than once to break them up, reassign them once it clear that Eastman did more teaching and instructing than Black ever had. "But you're not an asset."

"He doesn't have to fucking know that," she growled. "Make something up. I'm a fucking NYPD officer. That has to be worth something."

"It is," he said slowly. It was, actually, worth something. He'd been playing for time with her when it came to his father, scratching and clawing for time with her, three months here, a week there, a weekend. He'd used her mother's case as his excuse, the connection to his own Army Special Ops unit, and he could do that. He could say Deleware was fucking everything up, that Del's obvious combat training would blow Castle's cover with Beckett.

Because she didn't know that he'd been in the same fucking squad with her mother's killer. Most likely, most likely. He'd taken that to his father and had insisted he be given opportunity to figure out who the fuck was using the program's killers for their own ends, and as early back as 1999, only he had never told Beckett.

That secret was in his favor here.

"Okay," he said slowly. "Okay, I see."

"He set you up, Rick," she said. "Deleware set you up so he could go crawling to your father about us - you. About you and how much of a liability I am."

"You're not a liability," he growled, glaring down at her.

"You have a reaction like that in his fucking office and he's not going to see it that way."

He was broken but all this other stuff was coming up, hot and strong and furious. It felt strangely like the times she blindfolded him and he couldn't see her and he had no idea what was coming and she dragged it out of him, forced him to need her desperately, and the way that tasted, the way it pressed on his blind eyes, that's what he felt now.

Broken, but strong. Like he'd shattered some kind of fucking prison. His being had grown and pushed the limits of its walls until he was ready to burst, straining, always straining, and now he'd exploded, now it had gone off. 

He'd been a fucking hand grenade and there was no way to put back the pin.

Beckett caught his wrist, squeezed. "You can do this. You have to do this."

"I can do this," he told her. "I know exactly what to say."

And at that moment, the dark SUV pulled up in the street beyond the alley and it was time to go.

\-----

Beckett watched Castle carefully as he led Deleware to the SUV. She didn’t like it, that look on his face, that blank nothing. 

Sometimes right after she fucked with him, when she took more than he thought he could give, when the sex was fucking hot and intense, and okay, yes, usually he was cuffed or blindfolded or something, sometimes he had this look in his eyes for a second.

This look. She always thought, for a moment, oh God, I broke him. Too much, she was too much and she’d really fucking broke him.

But he always dragged back with this blaze of such burning adoration that it made her a little mushy. Both of them not themselves. He always came back; he never stayed gone.

He was still gone. And he couldn’t keep - he couldn’t be like this in front of his father.

Beckett hurried up to the SUV and slammed the door shut on Deleware, putting her back to it to confront Castle. That slick nothing-

Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck, Dr King had said. Stone face. Shut down. They both did it. But he couldn’t do this right now - he wasn’t on a mission. 

“Rick,” she said fiercely, gripping him by the biceps. “Rick, fuck, stop, you’re scaring me.”

He blinked.

“Castle, this is fucking important. This is so damn important. Do not fuck this up.”

“It’s fine, Beckett.” He shifted to open the door.

“You are not fine,” she hissed, blocking his movement. “You’re five seconds away from slitting this man’s throat in the back of a fucking government vehicle, Richard.”

He blinked.

She’d faced down fucking drug dealers and pimps and hookers fighting her for their spot, but Castle with this stone face, Castle looking not at all like Castle.

Castle the spy.

No. Castle the assassin. “You can’t do this,” she whispered, desperate to reach him. “Rick. You can’t - he did this on purpose, he’s getting off on it. He wanted you to react this way and now he gets to tell your father all about it.”

“Not necessarily.”

God, he was really going to do it. He was going to murder Deleware.

Beckett stepped into his body, sliding her arm around his neck and pressing her cheek to his, hard. Her heart was pounding. “No. No, Rick. Please. If you do this, if you do this, if you go into your father’s office having killed this man, his man, for me, what do you think he’ll do to me?”

“What?” Castle said. “What-”

“You said, you told me when you were dying on my kitchen floor this week - that was just this week - you said it was his doing. A test. He was testing you and you came to me.”

“Beckett-”

“You came to me. And now this? What happens when he finds out you did this for me? He’ll kill me as easily you’d kill Deleware. That’s why Del’s laughing. Because he knows he’s sealed my fate - he’s already done it. He knows he’s got me. He’s got me if you can’t redeem this. He’s already got me.”

“No,” Castle growled, clutching her roughly, a fist in her hair, the other pressing into the small of her back. “No. He doesn’t have you.”

“If you - if you care at all for me,” she husked, tilting her forehead to his jaw. “Please don’t do this to me. Black would send him, you know. Black will send Deleware to do it, do exactly what he wants to do if-”

“No. No.”

“Then you have to do the right thing,” she whispered. “You have to take him back to the CIA and fight for me.”

“God. Kate. Kate, he won’t touch you. He’ll never touch you. I’ll fucking murder him and he’ll never-”

“And Black will send someone else. Or he’ll do it himself. How much do you think he longs to do it himself? Get rid of me.”

“Oh, God.”

It wasn’t true; she had no idea. She was fucking lying through her teeth about his father - what the fuck did she know? except that a fucking test was setting him up with pirates to get his hand chopped off.

She knew she fucking didn’t like John Black, that something had flipped sick and uneasy in her guts when he had come around. She knew that any father who had set up his son to see if he would sink or fucking walking the plank, if he’d come back with a damn hand, then that wasn’t a man she should stand in the way of.

Castle moaned.

“Rick?” She stroked the nape of his neck with her fingers, closed her eyes. She’d never said anything quite so - personal. To anyone. And it was just - she would fucking say anything, she would say anything to get him back together, and she couldn’t possibly abandon him now.

“I’ll take him back,” Castle scraped out. “I’ll fight for you, Kate. I will always fight for you.”

She sucked in a tight breath, her body trembling despite the fact that she knew it was just show, it was just theatre to get him to do what was right.

He kissed her, mouth moving tenderly, tongue stroking. She lost that breath, stunned by the feeling in him, her fingers gripping his neck.

“Take Cujo home,” he murmured at her lips. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

She didn’t want to leave him alone with Deleware, but she was afraid that her riding along would only give Del more bait. 

“It’s okay,” Castle said, another kiss at the corner of her mouth. “I’m okay now. Thank you. Thank you, Kate. You always can make me human.” One last kiss and then he set her aside, opened the car door himself.

She gripped the dog’s leash and Cujo came to her side, nudging into her hand. She knuckled him behind his ears and watched the SUV drive away.

\-----

He could do anything for Kate. Anything.

Even ignore Deleware as he sibilantly spoke into the close confines of the SUV.

He didn't listen to the words; he shut out the words. He heard her name, intimate, soft, he heard her name and he shut it out completely. This was his life; he was good at this. He could play the game.

"I bet her cunt is so pretty and pink-"

Nothing. He heard nothing. Absolutely none of it. He felt her fingers at his neck and the press of her body, and if the image warped for a moment, he quickly straightened it, smoothed the wrinkle, kept himself impassive.

"Do you tie her to the bed? Better yet, string her up and let her hang so that she chokes-"

None of it reached the core of him, that inviolable inner landscape where he sometimes could live for months at a time, safe with her, safe. She was safe there, inside him, shielded from all of it, though she hardly needed protecting.

She was the one who had straightened his spine today. She was the one who had kept her calm and gotten him to see clearly.

And she was wrong. In some ways she was wrong. If he disposed of Deleware and came to his father's office in that blank detachment he had when on a mission, that cold shutdown that usually came when it was only business as usual rather than from the surfeit of bleak, grief-stricken rage as it was right now - if he showed up looking like the spy, his usual mission-ready face, then his father would be quite pleased.

He had never had that thought before. Of course John Black manipulated things to his own ends, and of course he was serious about the covert business. But that his father was pleased when Castle performed as he had intended his son to perform, when it went his way even in darker aspects - especially the darker aspects - that was a new thought.

If he killed Deleware, Black's own man, but he presented himself as the smooth and unflappable, the emotionless operator, then John Black would be unruffled. Pleased. 

Castle would be back in his father's good graces.

He saw that today for the first time.

Kate was wrong; morality held no place in this life. Ethics were a list of suggested guidelines that other people might live by. His code of conduct was a personal thing he'd developed through Eastman's handling, through the Army rigors, not through his father's tutelage. 

His father believed the ends justified the means. If killing Deleware brought Castle back into the fold, his father would consider it a win.

Deleware was baiting him. Did he want to die? No, but he definitely enjoyed the pain. And Castle failing to deliver that pain was a far worse punishment for the nasty, violent things he was saying about Kate.

So Castle tuned out. He maintained his face, the stone in his soul, because he knew his father needed to see that Castle hadn't jumped ship - but he was storing it up.

He was collecting every word, every atrocity, he was banking it for a later time.

He would get Deleware alone one day; he would use a knife, intimate and personal. He would see how much pain the snake enjoyed.

Until then, Castle had to play the game, keep Kate out of his father's sights. Because that was the one thing she was right about: he loved her, he loved her and his father would find that untenable.

The schoolyard scuffle in the Twelfth's alley would have to be explained, carefully, adroitly, so he wouldn't arouse his father's already hair-trigger suspicion. 

He loved her. He loved her and he was going to keep her.

\-----

The elevator ride was exceptional only for its silence.

Inside the New York field office - where Castle had managed to get himself stationed - the Office plan was mostly underground. Sub-basements and sub-floors and a whole category of spy shit that he normally paid no attention to, though he knew by heart. 

No, not by heart. By rote. Pure memorization. He had an eidetic memory, and it came naturally, but it was not a thing of the heart.

No, that muscle, that organism, had only recently been awakened, and it was consumed and controlled and managed and grown by love. By Kate. 

(There was a part of him even now that recognized and cataloged what he was doing at this very second, the way Deleware had fallen silent but the pleased look he still wore, even the shut down of his own soul was being recorded by some real-time aspect of his espionage brain. Training, perhaps, or self-preservation. What happened and when, noted and dated and time-stamped for later debrief).

He might talk to Dr King, he thought warily. He should. That would be a good idea; the man could navigate this better than him, the therapist could even explain to Castle which pieces of his anger were healthy to hang on to, being real, being a real emotion and not the soulless machine, but also which had to be discarded.

The doors opened and they were met with an empty hall.

They parted ways at the elevator, Castle heading down for his father's office to give his statement and probably, most likely, for an extensive debrief, and Deleware crawling back into the hole from which he'd emerged. Castle was disconcerted by the transformation Del undertook as he walked away; he even flinched when a colleague laid a hand on Del's arm and berated him for not finishing some trivial computer report.

He was an analyst here inside this Office, a fucking desk jockey. But Castle had seen the real man, had heard the real man, and that impostor walking down the hall was something alien and evil. 

Evil. He'd heard it bandied about, heard it every other word after the towers fell, evil. How they were working to scourge the world of evil, terrorists were evil, this brand or that was evil. Castle had never understood it; he worked side by side with the ones called evil and the ones called good or right, and he'd never seen much different except ideology or country of origin. The CIA killed and maimed and tortured as much or more than the terrorists. Who wasn't evil?

But this. Deleware. Here it was, finally. It had shown itself in his own organization, cozied up to his own father, curled around his father's right hand like a snake.

He had made note; it would not persist for long. The problem, as Castle had found over and over again, was that cutting off the evil he knew only left room for a new evil to grow, an evil he didn't know the face of. 

So Deleware still lived.

For now. Until the poisoned root could be dug out.

His father?

He didn't know. He couldn't be sure. Eve had given the fatal bite to Adam to eat, but it had been the snake's idea. Which was his father in this case? Deleware was his own snake, and maybe his father didn't know, but maybe it came from John Black himself.

Castle had this case, her mother's murder, that had already made him question, given him doubts, and now he had Deleware turning up an evil changeling in their midst. At his father's instruction, but how much?

How much could he trust his own father?

He just didn't know.

So when he knocked on Black's office door, he schooled his features with extreme care, adopted his flat affect, and he came when he was called.

\-----

"Ah," Black said, a pinched look to his mouth. "That is unfortunate."

"Was that on your order? To spout obscenities at my asset? I don't understand how that helps our cause," Castle said. He kept his voice modulated, let the curiosity override the brutal fury that still hammered at his insides. 

"Our cause," Black murmured, eyes narrowing. "Our cause?"

"This rogue Army officer. He's gone mercenary, sir. Even before the atrocities in Afghanistan, someone on that team - maybe more than one - murdered this New York public defender. A hired killer. That cannot be something you want to get out."

"Of course not. The program is paramount," Black insisted. "You know this. It's why I sent Deleware out in the first place. The program must remain inviolate."

"He's a match in a powder keg, sir. I don't know what his intention was other than to stir things up. I don't understand the goal."

"It was investigative," Black said, a flick of his fingers as if in dismissal. Castle had to stand very rigid for a moment to keep from doing damage. Black didn't seem to notice. "An inquiry if you will. And then you had him arrested to throw off the NYPD's scent after your utter catastrophe in Somalia. Richard. It was a poor showing."

"I did what was necessary to survive," he said woodenly. Always his father’s favorite. "I didn't know where the data had gotten corrupted because I knew you wouldn't have sent me to my death. But someone did. So I went to Beckett, my asset, whose own career depends upon mine remaining covert. I've already told you this. We cleared this."

"We did," his father mused.

"So explain to me why it was necessary to send Deleware to track her down. To abuse her. Psychological warfare on my asset."

"That is quite unfortunate," Black frowned. He rarely frowned. He was looking at Castle as he did it. "Those were not quite my orders. Merely - to see. See the effect on you."

"On me." He was close to breaking it; he was so close to ruining everything. He had to choke it down, keep up the facade. Nothing got to him; he was impervious. "Here's the effect. Is this what you wanted?"

His father, of course, didn't answer that question. "I'll talk to Agent Deleware about this."

"You do that," Castle snapped. He swallowed it back. "And by the way - clever trick. Deleware's not CIA, is he?"

"Whatever do you mean?" Black answered, brief smirk of his lips.

"Some kind of merc? Is that what we're doing now? Hiring loyalty. You know as well as I that the dog you pay will fuck you over. They can't help it. They shit their beds, every time."

"Well, yes," Black said, a mere shrug as he sank back behind his desk. He had actually stood when Castle had entered, another first. Now he apparently felt there was no need. "They do. Sometimes a shit storm is precisely what you need. And it makes an excellent excuse."

"Would you rather I put the dog down now or later?"

Black's eyes moved swiftly to his; there was shock. His words had deeply affected John Black, had somehow altered things. He didn't know how, but he felt it was only right to give warning. 

Let him know it was coming. Let him know there would be a reckoning.

"Let's leave it for later, Richard. He still has his uses."

"Keep him away from my asset."

"She's not really an asset," Black said smoothly, searching for a response, a reaction. "And we both know it."

"She's been an asset to me," he replied, bland. Bland. Nothing got in, nothing got out. "I knew I could rely on her secrecy when I was bleeding to death. I will take resources wherever I can get them, sir, and as you can see, it worked in my favor."

"She went scurrying through the city for your supplements. I suppose it was bad."

"It was bad enough," he said. "But we've already cleared this. You agreed that she was of use to me. You see my mission reports so you know I get the work done."

"I just think that focusing on one woman to the exclusion of all else is a detriment to your overall - well, mental health."

"What has the team said?" he countered. He didn't dare bring up King by name. "You've got a hundred shrinks in there. What do they think?"

"That you're quite professional. I do commend you for that. You've had your trials, but I still think one woman. This woman. It's not a good idea in the long run. As you said, the dog will shit its bed, Richard."

"Which one of us is the dog in that scenario?" he said back, even smiled. The curl of his lip carelessly in dark humor. "Because I do believe that's me."

"Fine," his father said, a huff of what could be amusement. "Just remember what you are."

Not who, no. Not even to whom you belong. Just what. A thing.

"It never leaves me," he said solemnly. "And I think you should know - this woman, this one woman, is an asset to me, but she is also a contact to be flipped. I would have thought by now that you'd want me to get closer, to track her investigation before it blows up in our faces."

"That won't happen," Black said easily.

"It will happen. You underestimate her, and her need to see justice done for her mother's death. I showed you the autopsy, and you saw with your own eyes what the squad did to that village. The American people, the public, they'll crucify us for this. And someone further up the chain, over our heads, they'll look at you, sir, they will look at you as the one responsible for all of this. The scapegoat. I have been orchestrating international politics long enough now to see that one coming - if we don't get ahead of this thing."

Black leaned back in his office chair, fingers steepled in front of his chin. He was calculating, and this was a risk, but Castle had to protect Beckett. He had to.

"Fine," Black said then, putting his palms flat on the desk. "Fine. For now. As you were."

Castle was dismissed.

But he knew it wasn't over.

\-----


	24. Chapter 24

Kate Beckett wasn’t really the type to sit at home and wait.

She took the dog out and loaded the dishwasher and changed the sheets, and then she stood in the bedroom and studied the fall of shadows from the building across the street. 

She glanced back to her dresser, the shield gleaming on top of the box she normally kept it inside. The beautiful weapon he’d given her was settled next to her own piece. One thing missing.

As if in a dream, she bent over the bedside table and opened the top drawer, dipped her fingers inside for her handcuffs. She rubbed her thumb over the silver bracelet and let her eyes follow its hard curve. 

She was back.

The chain clinked as she caught the cuffs against her chest, pressing the cold metal to her so it would warm up. She took a slow breath and sank to the mattress, her gaze traveling back to the window, the grey-tinged sky. Before she knew she was doing it, she had popped one of the bracelets over her wrist.

Kate huffed and glanced down, the silver dangling from her wrist like a piece of fine jewelry.

She left it there, moved out of the bedroom with the bracelet around her wrist, the other cuff bumping her thigh. It was erotic, the weight of the cuff, and she found herself thinking about it, aware of it, with every step.

She rubbed her free hand against the dog’s head, gave him another scoop of the dry dog food since she didn’t have any of the good stuff left. The metal was warming now, and as she moved past the living room, she realized she was already thinking about it.

Oh, to hell with it.

She wasn’t the kind to wait and worry; she was a different kind entirely and she had some leather laces leftover from these boots she had once loved...

Beckett rummaged in the junk drawer in her kitchen, smiling to herself as she saw the set of keys dumped into the little plastic butter dish inside. One set down, and she had no doubt she’d change the locks again before their time ran out. She scrounged through the back, past twist ties and rubber bands and nails, and she found the leather laces.

She pulled them out and moved back to the bedroom, already pulling her t-shirt over her head and leaving it on the floor of the hall. She unbuttoned her pants, pushed her free hand down her thigh, loosening her jeans. She was stripped out of them before she hit the bedroom, and she left them in the a heap on the floor.

Her panties and bra were nothing special, so she stepped and shook herself out of them as well, rifled through her armoire for the teddy she’d bought at Victoria’s Secret that first week they’d been together. Silver with black overlay, lace and see-through and this was the one he’d picked out himself and held back, not wanting her to know how much he liked it.

She’d known.

Kate worked her body into the v-neck teddy, pressing her breasts into the gel petals with their lace cups. The crotch snapped. Holy fuck, she’d forgotten that. Last time, it had gotten soaked with her arousal, and already she was thumbing through her own wetness as she snapped it closed.

Fuck. 

She didn’t even know how long it would take, but she sank to the mattress and drew her feet up, slowly tied one loop of the leather lace around her ankle. She studied the problem a moment, and then decided on a slip knot, tying her feet together but allowing a short length between them that could be tightened if he-

Yes. Oh, yes.

Kate bit her bottom lip and scooted up to the headboard, nestled against the pillows. She raised an arm over her head and gripped the metal pipe, breathing deep enough to press her breasts against the constricting material.

Fuck. 

She might have to take care of one before he got here.

Or.

Kate lifted her other hand and, before she could stop herself, she cuffed her wrists together. The key was accessible, and she knew she could even slip her wrist out if she had to, but she had to really fucking want to.

She rubbed her thighs together and closed her eyes.

Mm, she could completely redeem this fucking afternoon.

\-----

He was broken.

He felt it like a weightlessness. A curious out of body thing, like the part of him that was his being, his soul if he had one, had been split from the rest of him, from the hands and the feet of him, from the chest with its slow-thumping heart and the brain that was even now calculating.

He unlocked her front door and opened his mouth to call for her, but it wouldn’t come out. The dog came to him, Cujo was wagging his tail and rubbing against him in that way he had when he’d been ignored for a while. Castle rubbed him down, patted his side as he brushed stray fur from the dog’s hide, and then he stood up again.

He locked the door, bolted it, but he had this - this nothing in him. Like every word he’d been forced to speak to his father had hollowed him out, digging out the vital stuff of him.

He really wanted Kate, just - just bury himself inside her and stay that way. Not even sex or fucking or making her come, just press his face into her chest and feel her skin against his. He wanted her, he just wanted her.

He felt wrong. It all felt wrong; he didn’t know how to feel.

“Kate.” He cleared his throat and rubbed his hand down his face, raised his voice. “Kate.”

He didn’t hear her, but he spied her t-shirt on the floor of her hallway, headed for it. When he got midway, he scooped up the material, cool to his touch, and couldn’t help dipping his nose into her scent. Tart and sweet and something of spice in it. Castle pushed forward and found her jeans in the doorway and stepped over the threshold.

“Whoa, fuck,” he gasped, violently jerked into the here and now.

“Hey, baby. Been thinking about you.”

“Kate Beckett.” He stared at her, the long and vicious line of her body against the rucked up sheets, arms over her head and handcuffed to the bedframe. “Kate. Fucking. Beckett. What the fuck are you doing?”

“Get your clothes off and get over here.”

He tugged on his dress shirt, pulling it slowly out of his pants, starting at the bottom button. “Are you wearing that teddy from our first week?”

“Mm, not for long?”

He laughed, shocked by the sound of it in the bedroom, found himself staring at her.

Handcuffing her to the bed hadn’t been what he’d wanted, still wasn’t, really, not with Deleware’s words seething in his guts.

“You didn’t kill him,” she said, slowly parting her knees.

His breath caught. She was so soaking wet that the lace snap of the teddy’s crotch was stained dark. Castle pulled apart the sides of his shirt and dropped it from his arms, yanked off the undershirt before he sank down onto the mattress.

“Rick.” She said, her voice with that not-uh, not yet tone to it, her knee dipping away from his touch.

“No. Didn’t.”

“See? I knew you could do it,” she husked.

He wrapped his fingers around her knee and skated his palm down her warm shin, rubbing his thumb at her ankle. She had tied her feet together with a leather thong, a short length between her ankles giving her - and him - enough room.

Castle settled between her planted feet, his arms propped on her raised knees, rubbed her thighs up and down. “It was rough,” he said, teasing but he felt the truth hit him fat in the face. His eyes dropped to the silver and black lace of the teddy. Silver? No, more like a shimmering grey.

“Beautiful.”

“Come on,” she said, nudging at him with her knees. “No time to be sappy, Richard. Fuck me hard.”

“You handcuffed yourself to the headboard,” he murmured, touching his lips to her bare knee. “And dressed up in that teddy, all that tight lace, and-”

“Mm, sure did. And baby, my nipples are so chafed right now, all you’d have to do is tongue me a little. So shut up and put your mouth to better use.”

“You’re trying to distract me,” he said, lifting an eyebrow. “Won’t work, Kate. As I was saying, you handcuffed yourself and dressed up - for me. Didn’t you?”

“Is that what you’re angling for? Of course for you. Who the fuck else keeps breaking into my apartment?” Her face twisted and she broke eye contact. “Fuck, forget I said that.” Her ankles suddenly hooked at his waist, tightening so that he was pulled into her. “Just fuck me, Castle. I really need you to fuck me.”

But he didn’t want to do that. He wanted to press himself against her and feel her arms wrap around him and fuck, he just wanted to love her. He just - he couldn’t hear any more of Deleware’s fucking nastiness, let alone do it. 

He planted his hands on her waist and lowered his mouth to her belly, let his tongue run over the scrape of that shimmering lace. She moaned and tried to curl her legs around him but the leather thong kept her from getting a good grip. He pressed her thighs apart and laid his body at her groin.

“Fuck,” she growled. “Fuck, Richard.”

“That’s not my name,” he murmured, kissing her belly button through the peek-a-boo of the teddy. He pressed his fingers up under the high rise of material at her hips, stroked her bare skin under the teddy. “And I won’t do any of the things you think you want.”

“Fuck you, Richard. Just-”

He unsnapped her crotch and she grunted, hips bucking upwards. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t be giving you what you needed, love.”

She gasped, a sound that went right through him, and he lowered his mouth to her weeping sex.

\-----

“Bastard,” she gasped.

Oh, fuck. Fuck, he was being tender. 

Kissing her sex. Little kisses with his lips together. A dart of his tongue to catch her arousal. She couldn’t stand it. Every time she worked her hips up, he pressed his hands to her inside thighs and held her down.

“Fuck,” she mewled. “Rick. Please.”

He laid his cheek at her hip and stroked his fingers through her pubic hair. “Mm, I love when you beg.” 

Such a fucking stupid idea to handcuff her wrists. His thumb skirted her folds and dipped inside her, shallow, barely anything at all but it made her skin shiver, made her muscles twitch for him.

“Baby, please,” she gasped, knees tightening. Thighs tense. Belly taut. Her pleasure was a slippery thing, sliding away from her just when it got going. She trembled to find it, her whole body oriented to his touch.

His mouth came to her inside thigh, brushed up to the crease of her leg. He nuzzled his nose in her pubic hair and pressed open the lips of her sex. 

She cried out, pure desperation, her wrists tugging hard on the cuffs and her heels digging into the mattress. 

“Mm, settle down, love. I’m right here.”

She whined until his mouth touched her naked cunt. Her hips arched into his face and he growled and dropped down on her, pressing hard, licking a trail around her ass cheek and into her sex.

“F-fuck,” she gasped, choking down breath.

His tongue curled at her clit and sucked. Kate jerked under his mouth, shaking, fingers reaching for air, hips skimming up and up.

He hummed and nudged his thumb inside her, circling the ring of her sex, stretching her gently, lightly, barely there. She shifted her thighs under the hard press of his shoulders and rocked upward, grinding her teeth.

His mouth kissed her cunt, those small, wet kisses. Lips vibrating with his hum, his pleased disregard for her need, his darting tongue as he explored her folds and rearranged her entire being around his mouth.

Strokes of his fingers now, stroking, light and rhythmic. Her hips jumped to meet him, aching to meet him, and he kept her pinned.

Kate opened her eyes on a terrible cry, gulping for breath with the furious urge to grind, to thrust, to fuck. “Rick,” she snapped. “Fuck. Fuck-”

He licked her clit, kitten licks, light and lovely and raw. Everything was so fucking raw. She couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t bear to be this anymore.

“Please. Please. Please let me, let me, please, love, please love me.”

Suddenly he was pressed over her and pressing inside, two fingers hard and final and fierce, fucking her deep, so deep. 

Kate sobbed for breath, elbows tightening in at his ears as his mouth came over hers. Sealed, thrusting tongue, filling her everywhere, driving hard. She moaned into his mouth and arced, back bowing, and her orgasm crashed over her like a wave, drowning.

\-----

When she was merely just trembling, when she could open her eyes to him, she saw Castle watching her. 

His fingers slid out from inside her and she gasped, thighs jerking inward. His body was between her legs, keeping her open, and now he skimmed those drenched fingers up her hip and ribs. He circled her breast, over her sternum, cupped her breast to squeeze.

“Rick,” she moaned.

“You’re so beautiful. Marred by me.” His mouth came over the top of her breast and his teeth abraded the spot where he’d already bruised her. She growled but his tongue lapped the mark and curled to her nipple.

She mewled, so over it, so done with pretending, not even caring that she was ripped open to him. “Please. Please, just - just-”

“What, love?” he murmured, a soft kiss over her nipple. “What is it you’re begging me for?”

“Just don’t stop,” she cried out, mouth twisting, hips twisting, body twisting to get closer, more.

“Oh, sweetheart. Did you think I would? I could never stop.” His hand palmed her breast and kneaded, hard and sharp, and she bucked her hips into him.

The material of his pants scraped the skin of her inside thighs, his belt caught her belly. She moaned, mouth opening to suck in a breath, but Castle came up her neck with his kiss, burning straight to her lips and pushing his tongue over her teeth.

She groaned, rocking up into his body. He was so hard. He was such a strong man and the lines of him were rigid, with shockingly erotic heat, and she rubbed her breasts against his bare chest, needing more.

He licked her tongue and she mewled into that mouth, frantic, absolutely desperate now, worked past her need and into obsession, craving, uncontrollable and wretched.

Castle stroked inside her mouth and dragged his palm hard over her breast, nipple pinched by the rough abrasion. His hips rocked on top of her, the cut of his belt in her belly, her cunt staining his pants. She could feel him hard, feel his erection in his boxer briefs, feel him grinding down into her.

He bit her tongue, lightly, tugging, opened his mouth over her chin and down her neck, licking, sucking. Marking her again and again. His arm was bracing her neck, holding her to him as she writhed in the handcuffs, and his free hand massaged her breasts.

“Rick,” she whispered. “Please.”

He gripped her nipple with his thumb and forefinger, rolled over it so that she shouted.

Her knees came up and the leather thong caught at the backs of his thighs, dragging over the material of his pants. Castle bumped his hips down into her, glancing off her clit but pressing her wider, open again.

“Please,” she begged. “Please. Another, another one. I can’t...”

His thumb rubbed her nipple, the skin raw and painful, sore. His mouth dropped down to her collarbones and he bit the prominent ridge as she arched, trying to get closer. Castle pushed his mouth down to abused breast and his tongue darted out to cool the heat, playing.

She needed more; she had to have more. The nipple clamps so that every breath hurt, every breath pinched her clit and made her womb contract. But it was just the glancing, almost-perfect edge of his teeth scraping her, and his fingers massaging, and fuck, it was so good. It was so good and she was going to die.

Castle opened his mouth over her breast and sucked, rocking his hips down into her, humping her now, grinding. She couldn’t keep up. He was heavy, her wrists throbbed and pulsed with the welt of her straining, her feet were tangled in the leather laces and his pants weren’t even off.

“Rick, please,” she whispered. “Love. Please.”

He came up off her breast slowly, wet and warm, and she tilted her chin down to look at him, aching to touch something of him.

And then Castle was sitting up, leaving her, his palms dragging down her belly and gripping her thighs, kneading, his eyes on her sex. He widened her legs a little more, as far as the rope around her ankles would let her go, and then he leaned forward.

Both hands worked their way back up her body, cupped her breasts. His fingers worked her nipples fast, twisting and pinching, the heels of his hands digging into the pillow of her breasts. She gasped and arched, felt it coming, the thing building in her so that she was pushing up against his hands, her thighs abraded by the wide press of his pant-clad legs.

Her cunt contracted, her sex seeking him as he tortured her nipples, one constant, drawn-out, piercing pain of need.

Her orgasm broke hard and she screamed, breaking open with contractions that paralyzed her into that whiteout of nothing.

\-----

She was exquisite.

Castle laid beside her, warm skin to skin, smoothing his hand over her ribs and the flare of her hip, gentling her as she tumbled out of her climax. Her face was pressed hard into the raised crook of her arm, but when her shoulders slumped, he knew she was finished.

She sucked in a breath that sounded difficult and her head dropped back to the headboard. He could see her throat work with the effort of swallowing. The handcuffs clinked against the metal pipework of the bed frame as her hands shook.

A good one then. A very good one. Just her breasts and a little thrusting, and that had been after he’d fingered her to completion a first time. Good to know. Usually, if he wanted to string them out like this, he had to get to her breasts first, or else it just wasn’t enough stimulation without something extra.

He wondered what the confluence had been, what perfect storm in her body that had allowed her to fall so fast, so soon after the first.

She gulped. “Wipe that smirk off your face.”

He laughed and palmed her side, leaned in to put his mouth between her breasts, rubbing off the smirk. She grunted and drew up, apparently still sensitive, and he knew just what to do with that.

Castle shifted his body behind hers, arms dragging around her waist. She was limp and heated, her back damp with sweat, and he loved the way the cool material of his pants caught against her skin.

She grunted something at him and Castle angled his head through the loop made of her handcuffed arms. He had to pull her elbows apart with his hands, and now she was chained to him.

For all intents and purposes, anyway.

“This is much better,” he murmured, dropping his chin into the sling made of her shoulder. His cheek rubbed against hers, mussing her hair, and he had to reach up and brush it out of his way, kissing her jaw as he did.

“Shit,” she mumbled. She didn’t sound cognizant of him except in the most basic sense, and he used the opportunity to arrange her body against the slant of his own. Her hips were perfectly contoured to his groin, so he put his palm flat to her abs and pressed her back into him.

He groaned at the tight pleasure, the relief of pressure against his throbbing erection. She rocked her hips, trying to help, and he loved the way his hand rode the wave of her movement, the upward swell of her taut stomach and the downward plunge of her ass as she came back to him.

“Castle,” she growled, like a warning. 

“What, exactly, did you think was going to happen when you handcuffed yourself to the bed for me?”

“Fuck me.”

“Can you feel how hard I am?”

“Is that a fucking rhetorical question or are you really that fucking-”

He nipped the slope of her shoulder and she huffed at him, already at the baby dragon stage apparently.

“Spread your thighs, Kate.”

“Are we gonna fuck or are you going-”

“I don’t think you’re in any position to argue. Open your legs.”

She wriggled her ass back hard against him, but so what if he came in his pants? In fact, that would be another layer of intimate satisfaction, withholding his cock as he forced her into another orgasm.

He groaned into her ear and her hips jerked. She pushed back again with a breathless noise in her throat, her rhythm not quite in control.

“That feels good,” he throated.

She was taking short, clipped breaths and using her handcuffed arms as leverage, the soft skin of her inner arms abraded by the scruff on his jaw. He turned his mouth to her cheek and rubbed, back and forth, until she cried out.

Her hips were jerky now, frantic, and Castle moved the hand on her abs down. Down. Slipped his fingers through her folds and lightly over her raw clit.

“Rick,” she panted. A warning that ended with another mewl and the violent twist of her head into his, mouth wet and hot and seeking. Her tongue stroked and her hips bucked; his cock was pulsing now, trapped in those close confines of boxer briefs and his pants.

He circled his free arm over her breasts, binding them flat to her chest, and then he began to rub against her clit.

Her cry was cut off, body stretched rigid in his embrace, and then she came with a seizing, desperate thrust, a deadly growl in her throat.

\-----

Kate gulped her breath, staring up at the ceiling in her bedroom, trying. Trying. Fuck. What was even-

She gasped when his hand stroked her cunt and withdrew, her body growing rigid for an instant before sensation abruptly died. She was still raw, that terrible openness, but she couldn’t seem to move to put her damn legs back together.

Castle shifted at her back, the cool material of his pants a balm to her overheated skin. He pressed a sweet kiss to her cheek, a rumble of pleasure in his chest like an overgrown cat.

“I’ll fuck you now, if you still want it.”

She moaned, eyes slamming shut.

“Oh, is that a no?”

She whimpered, words gone, gone, everything gone. Castle went quiet and loosened his arm around her torso, kissed her again, lightly. His wet fingers, wet with her cunt, came to her lips and teased.

She couldn’t move. She could only swallow breaths as fast as they might come and faintly taste herself on her bottom lip as he stroked.

“Have I worn you out so soon?”

She opened her eyes and begged, begged him for it.

“I got you, love,” he promised. 

And then it was a careful extrication with her hands still cuffed over her head and his body abrading hers as he moved. She could only stare as Castle laid her back against the headboard and stood beside the bed. His hands went to the button of his slacks and she watched.

So broad. His chest shone, burnished gold by the Somalian sun, shoulders round with strength. His pectorals flexed as he unzipped and loosened his pants, and then he bent forward to remove them.

“Go slow,” she husked. “For me.”

He paused, eyes drifting to hers. His face had that hard-edged angle, chiseled, like something cut from stone. But beautiful and alive and emotive in the way true art always was, like the draping body of the Pieta, or the kiss of Cupid and Psyche. Something about loss and reaching, something about seeking and hopelessness.

She always saw his eyes first, a blue that stayed dark and obscure, even though the gaze was clear, the emotion was clear. Beyond his eyes, and these tonight were serious, steady, she saw the strong line of his nose down to his mouth. Chin and jaw met fluidly in lips pressed thin as he waited for her.

His nostrils were flat, his chin scarred, one eyebrow crooked, his eyes crinkled too tightly so that they were almost mere slits when he smiled. He wasn’t smiling now. Even with the range of small imperfections, they made his face captivating.

Handsome. He was. He was a beautiful man in the depths, but the surface of him had been alluring from the start. Handsome, average, appealing in the invitation in his eyes.

She dragged her eyes down, the collarbones that met in a deep V, like wings, the dusting of dark blonde hair between his pecs, the cut of his abdominal muscles that twitched under her gaze. His hands were tucked into the waistband of his boxer briefs, waiting.

“Off,” she said.

He shook loose the pants and stepped out of them and his thighs were encased in navy briefs, his cock a massive bulge against the cotton.

She was still handcuffed and her breasts ached, her cunt ached, but just seeing him before her made her want him desperately.

A strand of hair had fallen over his forehead, crossing his eyebrow. His eyes glittered, something dangerous in their never-wavering gaze.

He snapped the elastic band of his boxers and her eyes cut to the movement of his hands. He was easing the material over his cock, that thick rod springing up from the nest of dark pubic hair. Soft pubic hair, she remembered, and his cock was always silky warm in her mouth.

“Kate,” he sighed and pushed off his boxers. 

He was naked, and he was wrapped in muscle and steel and heat, and he was crawling onto the bed over her.

She parted her knees and let her thighs fall open to him, received his hips snugly against her own. She mewled at the touch of him, the throb of his pulse between her legs, his cock anxious for her. 

“Want you,” she whispered, lifting her chin to seek his mouth.

He kissed her, his hand burying itself in her hair, gripping the nape of her neck and bringing her in. Her breasts rubbed raw against his chest, and she knew it was going to be fast. It was going to be soon, and he was wide and thick and heavy on top of her.

His hand untangled from her hair and stroked up her arm; she groaned into the thrust of his hips as his fingers found hers, squeezed.

He kept hold of her hand, dragged his cock over her belly, rocking against her. She was a shell split open, a clam broken apart for the slick meat inside, and finally, finally his free hand touched her there, probing.

She grunted at the invasion of his thumb, and then tightened her knees at his hips as he withdrew. But he was only aligning their bodies, his mouth panting reassurances into her cheek, across her lips as he grazed her clit and came for the entrance of her cunt.

Castle thrust and he pushed home, splitting her open, juice running thickly between her legs and coating his cock. He grunted at her cheek, breath shallow as he ground his hips into hers.

“Rick,” she gasped.

His hand in hers squeezed again and she vibrated below him. The sensitive inside flesh of their arms kissed all the way down to the slope of her breast as it chafed against his chest.

He thrust.

Kate jerked with the frissons of need ripping through her sex. Burst of it, too raw, too recent. His mouth laid over hers, stroked inside, hips pumping slowly. She was being sawed in half at that aching place between her legs; he was sawing her open.

“Kate.”

She grunted and arched to meet him, to help, felt her womb contract sharply around him.

“Oh, yes,” he growled. “That’s what I want.”

She clutched, and clutched; she felt it happening without her, the ferocious greed of her cunt.

“That’s it, sweetheart. That’s it.”

She clutched, she gripped, she clenched. She held him deep inside, bearing down on his cock until her climax twisted through her in a great and terrible implosion.

And then he began to fuck her.

\-----


	25. Chapter 25

He was so fucking hard, he couldn’t stand it a second longer.

Castle fucked her deep, mindless, fucked her until his balls drew tight into his body and his come burst from his cock in endless ropes, his orgasm roaring in his head and out of him. He pumped all of it into her, working, grinding, gripping her flesh to his until he was done.

He dragged in a breath that tasted like her. She was still rippling and twitching around his cock, still overstimulated and sensitive, her inside thighs shaking against his hips where she clung to him.

Castle propped himself onto an elbow to keep from straining her shoulder joint, and then he reached for the bedside drawer and the key for the cuffs.

She moaned as his cock slipped from her, her own breaths panting in her chest. Sweat clung to their skins and he found the cold metal key, brought it back to unlock her hands. 

When the first bracelet popped free, her arms dropped like stones. But immediately Kate was dragging him into an embrace, the cuffs dangling from her left hand and digging into his back. He didn’t care, she didn’t seem to care. He buried his face in the fall of her hair, touched his tongue to the brine on her neck.

Her heart was racing. Her body still trembled under his, so raw that anything set her off. His breath against that spot below her ear made her mewl, and his fingers curling at her ribs made her skin shiver.

Castle laid on his back and brought her with him, touching his lips to her jaw, her cheek. She seemed to melt down into him, as if she needed skin to skin everywhere. No place without him touching her.

He wanted back inside her. He wanted back where he belonged, where it was hot and tight and the whole world disappeared.

He shouldn’t, shouldn’t. As it was, she was jerky and trembling and having trouble breathing. His cock was half-hard, but that was mostly a perpetual thing with her naked in his arms. It’d go away eventually. 

Kate shifted. Her knee against his cock so that he groaned, cursing as his head arched back. 

She pushed off his chest, barely separating them. Her eyes opened as she rubbed her heat over his trapped cock.

He would never stop her; she would never ask. She dropped onto her elbows so that her breasts rubbed against his chest, friction setting off electric shocks down into his guts. His cock was throbbing again.

She leaned in and laid her nose against his, her breath skirting his lips. “Rick.”

“Fuck,” he grunted.

The handcuff pressed hard into the place where his rib met his sternum, restricting the lift of his chest so that he was getting breathless.

“Rick.” She touched her tongue to his lips but he was already open for her. She ground her hips against him and gasped, clutching his shoulders as her own movement set her off.

He couldn’t stand it.

Castle released her back and dragged his hands down to her ass, gripped hard. She moaned into his mouth, lewd and sharp, her hips jerking into his cock. He shifted her up until he felt her at his belly, and then she took over, wriggling back until he was lined up at her cunt.

“Fuck me,” she breathed. “Fuck me. Fuck-”

He thrust up and buried himself inside her. Kate cried out with it, shuddering, her sex already beginning to milk him.

“Fuck me,” she groaned.

“No.” He dragged a heavy hand back up to her head, snagged a fistful of hair to push it away, let him see her eyes. She dropped her head, panting hard. He put his mouth on her jaw and bit at her earlobe. “No. You fuck me.”

She moaned but moved. Rocked. He cursed as his hips jumped. She was moving fast, hard, collapsing back on top of him with every downward thrust. Nailing herself. He gripped her neck with all that hair in his fist, the sweaty ends snaking around his wrist. He was driving his hips up into her, meeting her, even as she planted her hands on his chest and worked hard for it.

He kneaded her ass with his free hand, dragged inside to thumb the place where they were joined. He moaned at the touch of his own hand on his cock, pushed his seeking fingers up to her sweat-slicked belly.

Kate shuddered.

He released her hair and dragged his hands to her breasts, pushing her upright as he drew up his knees. Didn’t quite work, the damn leather thong caught at them and she twisted. Castle released a breast and fumbled at her ankles until the cord came free and then she drew her knees up to his ribs and came down hard.

“Fuck!”

She moaned over him, her hair falling forward, her body practically on hands and knees as she fucked herself on his cock. He was so fucking hard; he was gritting his teeth to keep from bursting into orgasm inside her.

She was trying so hard for it, her fifth, fifth climax, and he had to do something so he could fucking come, fuck. Fuck.

Kate shimmied with a moan, her hips sloppy, her exhaustion locking out her muscles. Castle began to thrust harder, pressed her body back to his raised thighs, using his own heels as leverage to get enough force behind it.

She jerked at his first stroke upward, her body taut and quivering upright. Her eyes came open, her gaze dropping down to him; he held her trapped against his thighs, his hands crushing her breasts and elbows digging into the tops of her drawn up legs.

Her gaze scorched him. Her mouth was open, and her tongue came out to touch her bottom lip. A moan rose up from the depths of her so that he could feel it in his forearms, his hands, feel it spill out of her.

She came in a slow drag. Muscles clenched around his cock, her body straining down against him, and then she was moaning as it ripped her open.

Castle let himself go, thrusting inside her as she tumbled down over his chest. Her cheek hit his shoulder. He let out a hoarse noise as her cunt got impossibly tighter, and he orgasmed again, messy and quick and draining.

\-----

He could still feel the handcuff on her left wrist, the metal digging in against his ribs where she held on to him. But he wasn't about to mention it; he wouldn't call her attention to the fact that draped over him like this was so much more than if you care anything for me.

He trailed his fingers through the sweat that had collected at the nape of her neck, humid and soft, the damp tendrils of hair that curled around the back of his hand. She was pressed to him cheek to knees, their skins melded, and the only odd thing about it was that handcuff she still wore.

Well, no. Not that odd really. Just made him aware. After he'd uncuffed her, she'd barely noticed, had seemed to melt back into the mattress. All he had needed to do was arrange her body over his and she'd come so willingly, gratefully even.

Even if she had to prove herself first, had to be brazen and unflinching and handcuff herself and say lewd things to reclaim it all, she still needed this too. Love. She had needed it and she had no way to ask for it, to even identify the need, and he had no problem being the one to force it.

Her hair was in his mouth. He petted it down and combed it back behind her ear, traced a line all the way to her shoulder. In this moment, she radiated peace. Everything put to rights. And he hadn't even told her just how far he'd gotten in her mother's case; it had nothing at all to do with that. This was all the afterglow of love.

It did the same for him, of course, but never before had she paired tenderness with emotional honesty. Point blank in that alley, she'd said it. Or insinuated that she knew he had feelings for her. Okay, so not technically point blank, but from Beckett, holy fuck, that was pretty cut and dried. 

Flat statement. Even trying to manipulate him into getting his shit together, it was a pretty extreme thing for her to say, considering who she was and what she wanted out of her life. She should have denied it in a hundred small ways since then, should have changed the locks again or not even been at home when he got back or rolled her eyes at his earnestness or any one of the other things she'd done, still did, every time things got serious, or the sparks flew a little too fast.

But instead she'd offered herself up. Cuffed and waiting, the lingerie that she knew he loved, that sexual openness that absolutely floored him. Why had she done that?

This was Kate Beckett not running away from him. This was Beckett actually acknowledging, in her own special way, that if he cared anything for her, well, it was mutual.

It was such a strong statement from her that he could almost hear her saying it in her own voice. Almost. It was like she'd breathed the words into him when he hadn't been paying attention and now they'd come floating up to the surface. It's mutual.

She'd do that. She'd murmur it, that phrase exactly; he could feel it so intensely inside him that he began to plot it out, when that might happen, what day she'd finally say it, when he would say it, what the projection for that future looked like. Kate, I love you, and her arm hooked around his neck because of course he'd say it in a moment overwhelmed by her closeness, needing her, he'd say it then and she'd tilt her mouth against his ear and breathe heavy for a second and then she'd say, Mutual, love. She would. Just like that. A little tiny amount of rueful affection, maybe even a laugh at the end, and then her thighs widening to take him.

"Mm, your heart's racing," she mumbled.

He flinched, came back to himself in their bed and Kate stretched out on top of him. "Thinking about you," he muttered, heat flaming in his cheeks, his neck. 

She laughed and curled her fingers at his ribs, wrist twisting in the manacle. "Thinking about me? I'm right here."

"Yeah."

"You're kind of adorable sometimes, you know that?" She cracked her jaw on a yawn and turned to lay her other cheek against him, drawing her arm in and curling up. Like a kitten falling asleep in the warm sunlight. He carefully wrapped his arms around her, shifted so he was on one shoulder and she was in the cove of his body. She mumbled something and sighed, her knee sliding between his, her mouth parting.

She was falling asleep. It was mid-afternoon so it wouldn't be for long, but the jumble of warm, knobby limbs and her hair tucked under his chin was just too much to resist. Too good. He might let himself sleep as well.

\-----

Beckett woke sharply, all at once from a dream that was more sensation than image, but when she jerked her eyes open, Castle was hovering beside the bed.

With a mug of coffee. Two mugs, she corrected herself blearily, even as she reached for one. "Not-uh, that's mine," he said, withdrawing one and switching with her. She didn't care. She went for it blindly and brought the mug to her lips, faintly realizing she was still naked. And so was he.

"Am I still adorable?" he grinned.

Kate grunted, lifting a look to him as she swallowed hot liquid. "Mm."

"Come on. I brought you coffee." He sank down onto the mattress on his side, scooted back to the headboard. He was a little firm, she saw, and she wondered if that hurt, walking around naked with the air on his skin and his body still primed for her.

"Yeah," she admitted. "Still adorable. It could change at any moment, though, Rick, so don't get a... swelled head."

He barked out a hard laugh and his eyes widened brightly, but he didn't make a move towards her and she just pressed the mug against the bare skin of her chest until she couldn't stand it any longer. Burned. So good.

"You took off the cuff," she said, realizing it vaguely.

"Cleaned us up a little," he said, shrugging. "You were knocked out cold."

"That's what happens to us mere mortals when we go off five times in the space of an hour," she said. Scathingly, even though there was no burn in it, just a lot of cat-ate-the-canary contentment and no small amount of pride. For herself, that she had somehow found the one man in the whole fucking world who knew what the hell he was doing, and did it so damn well, and she got him. She got to have that mouth on her, those fingers working her off, that impressive cock that was, even now as she looked, so thick and wide and ready for her.

"Mere mortals," he murmured. Something in the way he said it had her flashing back to that dream, whatever it had been, and the way Deleware had looked at her outside in the alley, the two of them alone, cornered.

She took another sip of coffee, wondered if it was a good idea, more caffeine, but sleep might be worse. She was allowed back after tomorrow, so if she spent her night an insomniac, it wouldn't matter all that much. 

"I didn't kill him, but I did talk to my father about him."

Kate's shoulders hunched entirely without her say, but she made the effort to drop them, take another sip of her coffee, act natural.

"I'm afraid of him," Castle said.

"Your father?" she gasped. She was too; she didn't know why but if he was-.

"My father? No. No. Del. I - never saw that coming, Kate. I never saw it. How could I not see it?"

"What he is," she said woodenly. She felt sick somewhere, like he'd betrayed her. But he hadn't betrayed her, that was stupid. He'd stood up for her, actually. He had made it right.

"What he is. And how I led him here. I brought this to your door," he said. He sounded tired, and his head tilted back. "I brought work home with me."

She caught a breath and tilted her body into his, knees to his thigh. "No. You didn't. You were - dying, Rick. It's not like you're a damn workaholic or you won't put your phone away long enough to fuck. You were dying. So you did what you had to do to survive."

"I thought it didn't matter," he croaked. "I thought - no, well, I wasn't thinking at first. Just, just get here. Get to Kate. But when I was with it enough, I should've left and-"

"When? When exactly would you have left? When you were bleeding to death? When you were unconscious? When I had to stab you with a needle twice because you were so fevered you weren't responding?"

"No," he sighed, a kind of agreement in his voice. A version of it. Like he saw it but he didn't see it. "Not then. When Del came and the dog - Cujo knew it. I should've known it."

"Should is for regrets," she snapped. "There are no regrets. Shit happens and we deal with it. You can't live like that, wishing you'd done it different, and you know better. You know better. So move on, Richard."

He didn't look at her, but he did, at least, open his eyes. She clutched her coffee mug and brought it to her lips, swallowed without thinking, struggling with the bitterness that had been dredged up. Where did it come from? 

"No regrets," he murmured. His hand fell to her knees that were digging into his thigh and he stroked lightly with his thumb. "No, I have no regrets with you. I just - can't understand how I didn't see it. But no, you're right, you're right. Move forward. And on that agenda, you'll be glad to know that Black seemed mollified."

"Black. Black seemed mollified." She slapped his bare chest. "Are you fucking kidding me? Who’s the one who should be mollified, Richard? Your fucking co-worker on his orders tried to-"

She cut herself off, shut it down. Beckett angled her chin up and took a short breath.

"I'm not afraid of him," Castle rumbled.

"Del? Because you said-"

"My father," he interrupted. "I'm not afraid of my father."

"Oh, baby, that's cute. You're wrong. You're terrified." She rolled her eyes at him and slid out of bed, coffee mug in her hand, searching for a t-shirt. "You keep telling yourself that, fine. But next time he engineers some kind of fucking test and you get your hand chopped the fuck in half, don't come to me."

She slammed her coffee on the dresser and it sloshed over and scalded the webbing of her thumb, but she didn't fucking care. He wanted to keep his head in the sand, fingers in his ears like a little boy? Fine. A little boy of five whose mother had-

Fuck. Fuck. Of course he protected that image of his father, that carefully constructed lie that told him his father loved him and cared for and wanted him when no one else did.

Shit.

She snaked the t-shirt on over her head and used the moment of muffled darkness to gird herself, and then she turned around, pulling her hair out from under the collar.

Castle sat very still and very composed on her bed. Head down. 

Shit. Her whole body twisted up at the sight of him. "Rick. That was - wasn't fair. Ignore me. I'm - yeah, I'm afraid, okay? I'm afraid of this guy who says really fucking terrible things about what he wants to do to me, and I've seen him move, seen how good he is, seen you get hurt by him too, and so I know he can do it. Makes it worse somehow. And I took it out on you and you don't deserve that. You've been nothing but solid for me, backing me up, even to your - to him. So. Fuck, Rick, will you just look at me?"

He still didn't. Shit. Shit, how did she fix this? She'd just been bragging in her head about how she had this fucking hot, fantastic in bed guy and now she'd fucked him up.

Beckett shifted on her feet and ran a hand through her hair, but no answer was forthcoming except to spread her thighs over his lap and grind into him and that didn't exactly solve problems. 

Well, it entirely did. But.

"Will you just - say something?" she whispered.

"Next time," he started slowly. But nothing came. She saw his mouth working, his jaw flexing, but he still didn't find words to fill it in.

"Next time, you come to me then too," she rushed in. She crawled onto the bed with him and dropped into his lap, practically sitting on his folded hands and the coffee mug. "You come to me, Rick Castle. I might fucking say some stupid shit to you, I might even be so pissed with you, I-I change the damn locks or shut - hell, you know better. You come to me because I will always fight to keep you alive. Okay?"

She braced her hands on his shoulders and tried to override the panic flinging hard and insistent against the cage of her ribs - her heart - and she took deep breaths. 

His chin came up, but his eyes didn't quite follow. This little boy, this boy who had clearly -clearly - been fucked over by the father who should have loved him, but then again, shouldn't they all? Weren't fathers supposed to do the right thing?

Hers had, once upon a time. She had nearly twenty years of a man who thought she was amazing, a daughter he was proud of, a young woman whose company delighted him, and he had done everything for her. He had foregone partnership in his firm the first time around so that he could stay at home with her while her mother was on the fast track, and he had been amazing. She still held on hard to that, the shining and still so vivid feeling of him, her father, and Castle’d had none of that.

She carefully took the mug of coffee from his nerveless fingers and laid it on the bedside table, knees tightening on his hips to hang on as she leaned. She came back and settled her hands on his chest, feeling his heart under his skin, and then she leaned in and laid her body against his, shirt to skin.

He shivered.

She’d felt betrayed, somehow, and she had lashed out at him, and this wasn't the first time, but maybe it was the first time she'd seen the results. Consequences. Bad ones, ones where he wasn't okay; it was like he was always okay, or he was acting like a melodramatic fool for her, never done in by her raging.

Had she broken him really? This time, the combination of Deleware's being nasty and his whole father construct trembling and then she'd come along and shoved it pretty hard, pushed things, gotten into things that weren't her fucking business.

Had she finally brok-

His arms came around her, hot skin enveloping her, and his face pressed down into her neck. "Kate," he shuddered.

She stayed, she stayed still, forced herself to stay.

"I just want you to be - to be - out of this. I don't want you in it. Just please, please, don't lea-"

He stopped, a great sigh that sounded panic-tinged, but she tried to figure out what the word might have been. Leave? Don't leave him?

Where the fuck would she go?

\-----

With his face still buried in her neck and his arms hanging heavy around her torso, she rocked her hips against him and sought the place where they were always good. He let out a breath that caught her collarbone and tickled her breast, and she clutched the nape of his neck to hold him still, worked him in her hand until it was enough.

His breathing was hard. His fingers dug into her shoulder, forearm strong at her spine. 

She rubbed herself against him, his need igniting her own, and then she sank down over him until he filled her.

"Kate," he growled.

She rolled her hips, skimmed the shirt off over her head.

His hissing breath cut off, his teeth flashed at her neck to crowd out a whimper. She rolled again and couldn't stop this time, kept that tight, abrupt rhythm going, kept moving over him so that he moved inside her. She wanted this to solve everything, she wanted this to say the right words, she wanted to not have ever opened her mouth.

He was panting harshly at the top of her chest, bowed into her, and she rode him, pressing up a little on her knees, coming back down to bump his groin with hers. He clutched her hip and shoulder, driving her down a little harder now, a little more needy, and she felt the fear being rubbed out, felt the confidence climb higher, rising like an air bubble, tickling and joyous and easy.

Easy. Only thing easy ever was this.

His hand cupped her jaw. Her eyes flashed open.

He was afraid. It was there, deep, but it was there. "No, don't," she murmured. Brought her fingers to his mouth, caressed his lips. He closed his eyes, lifted his hips and she moaned. He opened his eyes and caught her by the back of the neck, brought her in close, chests electric and pressed together.

She moved slowly, listening to his grunts, gauging them and adjusting, his hand riding low on her back and feeling her ass, guiding and encouraging.

He was going to come first. She felt it. She wanted it. It was vital that he come, that he just let go, ignore everything else, stop trying so hard, and just-

He came. A grunt. Clamping his hands down hard on her, keeping her there like she would ever, ever move.

Kate snaked her arms around his neck and worked with the last of his release, drawing it out as best she could until he gasped and eased.

Much better. Now it was okay, now it was just fine.

\-----

She had only gone to two sessions with Dr King but already she felt his words on her tongue, that prompting she'd always ignored somehow unable to be denied.

"Is there - does this help?" she murmured. Terrified to ask but she had yet to back down from anything that might at all seem frightening. Talk? She could fucking talk to him.

Especially since he was still inside her. 

"Helps," he scraped out. His fingers were still bruising her hip but she didn't move. He cleared his throat and suddenly turned them down into the bed, lying side by side with an intimacy that somehow felt strange. After everything.

"Do you - is there more to this?" she mumbled. She felt foolish but it was like that damn therapist was in her head. How had he done that so fast?

"Fuck, sorry," he sighed. "Give me - half a second and I'll get you back."

She laughed, breath catching hard, and she wound her arm around his neck and tried not to offend him; she could feel him stiffening and not in the good way. 

"No, no, that's not - I didn't mean it like that," she said, breathless with it. Misunderstanding. They probably did that a whole hell of a lot more than she ever realized, all things considered. She rocked her hips into his lazily and worked her way closer. "Don't need any more to this at all."

"Oh." Long pause, his palm pressing to her back. "But. How else did you mean it?"

"I mean - um - shit - I meant do you need to say anything more? I get this idea that you had something you wanted to say and you got - um - not all of it got said. I don't know. Fuck, ignore me. I had therapy this morning and it makes me-"

"Don't let him find you alone," he said fast. Urgency so dark in his words that they sounded clipped. Broken.

"What?"

"Don't - don't go out alone," he moaned. "Just don't let him have that chance. Chance to get close. To hurt - to do any of what he said. Just-"

"Richard," she growled.

"You're very fast and you're very good and I'll step up training with you, Beckett, so that you have more Krav Maga moves, but he's fucking trained, and better, and for decades. He's a mercenary, I'm sure of it, and if he gets you alone-"

"That won't happen," she said flatly.

"Yes, good, don't - yes, please just - nowhere alone, Kate, no cut-throughs in a dark alley or-"

"Castle," she huffed. "I can't refuse to be alone. I'm a cop."

"But-"

"And I do have a gun."

"But a cop has - a partner, right? They assign-"

"Shut the fuck up before you piss me off."

"Don't let him find you alone," he whispered, arm banding tighter around her now, so tight she had to fight for breath. "Please. I did this to you, brought him to you, and if he-"

"Because it's all about you?" she muttered, shoving him off.

He wouldn't go. He crowded back, resisting her resistance, ignoring the way she pried his fingers off her hip, his eyes not even flinching as he stared at her. It was never hard to know what he felt, thought, wanted with those blue, clear eyes.

Except for a few minutes in that alley. When his face had gone so blank and dead that life itself was extinguished. 

"Don't go out alone," he whispered. "Take the dog. Take-"

"Fucking hell, Richard," she sighed, giving up on squirming away. She pinched his nipple instead but he didn't even react. Like there was nothing. She scraped her nails down his belly and reached for him, but he blocked her with a knee and rolled over on top of her.

She stared up at him.

"Okay," he said slowly. "Okay. You're a cop, you have training, I'm doing my best to supplement that crap self-defense set with actual elite moves, but you gotta meet me halfway here, Kate."

"By rearranging my whole fucking life around whether or not Deleware can find me alone?"

"Yes."

"No."

"He'll do things." His throat worked, his forehead dropped to her cheek. She felt the collide of bones in her face and winced, his body falling hard over hers, flattening her.

"Can't live that way," she murmured to him, stroking her fingers through the baby fine hair at his neck. Soft. He was vulnerable to her. He didn't even have to make himself; he just was. She understood that sometimes, how it got away from him, how it started filling up places inside that had never seemed broken or cracked before.

But it was so obvious now that they had been. Cracked and broken.

She wrapped her arms around his head, spoke into his ear. "Can't live like that, Rick, and you know it. Why else did you buy me a fucking expensive gun? And leave me a half-wild dog that I had to K9 train? And show me how to disarm a man in twelve different ways? You've done your part, love, and now you have to trust that it's enough."

"He's better than some fucking-"

She gripped his hair to shut him up. "I do know that. I'm not without a healthy understanding of the many ways he could fuck me up, Richard. But I don't live it. I won't. I made that promise to myself when I was 19 and my mother was brutalized in her own home. I won't."

He was breathing hard, like he'd run a marathon and collapsed over her, like he'd come hard and done the same. He didn't seem to want to look her in the eyes, just press his body to hers.

"Be safe?" he cracked. His hand was shaking as he lifted it from her back and cupped the side of her face. His head came up then and he looked at her. "Can you -"

"Not possible," she murmured lightly. "But I can be smart."

His body sagged into hers. "Smart. Yes. My smart girl," he mumbled, his relief a weight over her.

She withstood it a moment longer and then she nudged her knee into his thigh to move him. "I'm not your girl, Castle." And then when he still didn't move, she shoved and rolled him onto his back, found herself caught and splayed at his side, half on top of him. "I'm not yours, not anyone's. Not Deleware's to play with. I have a fucking mission in life to get justice done, and I will not compromise it."

"That's good," he sighed, nodding. "That's - what makes me lo-" He grunted and rubbed his hand down his face. "Gives me faith that you'll survive, every time. You wouldn't sacrifice the end goal just to prove some fucking point about Deleware." 

Beckett stiffened. She had been trying to - warn him off her. Warn him he was treading into dangerous territory but now he was... making fucking sense.

Castle shook his head and lifted up on an elbow, his fingers trailing to her cheek as he slowly smiled. It looked painful, as if he was trying hard. "If you let him kill you, then where's the justice? So yeah, I'm - I understand you're not stupid. I didn't mean it like that. I'm just... for the first time in my life, I can see how something won't go the way I want it to. I can see how - how fucked life can get. And it's my fault. I did this. And you don't deserve it."

"What the fuck," she muttered, rolling her eyes. "Don't deserve it? Did my mother deserve it? My fucking dad who can't bear to be sober? Life just sucks, Castle. It just does. This is how it works."

He was studying her as he stared, tracing her features with his eyes, and it was so damn disconcerting. He just fucking saw too much. 

When he wasn't being dense.

"You don't deserve it," he said softly. "And I seem to bring with me only more of the same. Rather than everything you ought to have, the whole world at your feet, and answers to the questions you've stopped daring to ask, and joy. Like I find here."

His hand trailed down to her breast, laid over her skin so that she felt her heart pumping to meet him. He bent forward and touched his lips to the place above his thumb.

"Is it joyful?" he murmured, tracing another kiss up to where his fingers rested, skimming her skin. "Do you feel it like I do? So that you just want it all the time. So that the rest of life only augments the times when we're here again, together. It doesn't pale in comparison at all. Life gets richer, brighter, because I feel you here even when I'm not."

His mouth touched her mouth; she didn't have to speak, couldn't. He was stroking inside and caressing his fingers across the tops of her breasts, and it was everything.

She didn't have to answer. But she had an answer anyway, unbidden, instant, frothing in her mouth as he kissed her.

yes.

\-----


	26. Chapter 26

He didn't take her, he just kissed her, touched. Touching. 

Fingers, mouths, the slide of skin on skin, his thigh nudging. She felt caught up, a web; she was being lulled as the spider spun its cocoon around her. She drugged herself with his mouth, touches of tongue. She found his neck and he tugged her back to his mouth; she dipped to his ear and teased and he took her lips, insistent.

His hands coasted over her body and between them, around to frame her, brace her, draw her into a new position against him. There was nothing she wouldn't do, but he asked for none of it, and even her frustration dissolved into the buzz and bliss of touching.

His mouth. She opened for his mouth and stroked against his tongue, breathing deep when it came, filling herself with him. She had her fingers cupped at his jaw and she rubbed the tips against his scruff, that rough abrasion that gave her sensation, sharp and quick. His mouth, warm and damp and strong. Her moans were the same as breathing, her sounds swallowed.

He held her breast in one hand, cupped, the occasional drag of his thumb, even as her body rushed with blood to get closer, have more. His other arm was under her neck and his elbow bent so that his fingers played in her hair and tangled and urged. She gasped and their mouths parted, wet, breaths hot against lips, noses pressed side by side, lashes catching, tickling. She gripped his ear, struggled to ease her heart.

Petting her. Soothing. Warm and heavy hand down the slope of her waist to caress her flank, arrange her leg between his knees. Her body loose, overwarm, her breasts weighted and swollen, lips as well. She couldn't speak past the numbness.

He came back to kiss her, mouth to mouth, must have felt her limp and dazed because he dragged down to her jaw and at her ear, nuzzled. 

She was drowning in the smell of him. That intimate sweat smell, that faint scent of soap overlaying sex. Her eyes were closed again; she couldn't open them. Her sex was a wound, weeping, pulsing with the blood in thickened flesh, and his thigh was steady between hers. He gathered her close and breathed fast at her ear and she was being dragged down.

His lips at her earlobe. The rumble in his chest that warned her the words were coming.

"This?" he murmured. "This says you are."

She was? She was what?

"You're mine."

\-----

mine

She woke with his claim in her body, his possession in her soul, his words in her head.

The night had stretched over their bed and dulled the colors of her room. Darkness licked at her vision but the city’s lights glowed pink beyond the window blinds. She was on her side with Castle lying before her, the cliff of his shoulder rising from the mattress in a dark blur.

She could smell them still clinging to her skin. Sex was still stamped deep inside her, the fullness of him still with her despite the separation between their bodies.

you’re mine

She unfurled her fingers from under her cheek and pushed her hand across the bed until she touched the angle of his elbow.

“You’re not asleep,” she murmured.

“No.”

Her breath caught, surprised by how subtle it was, his subterfuge in the darkness. He’d been waiting on her.

Waiting on her before he left.

“You have to go.”

“At some point.”

“Tonight.”

“I...”

She pushed her fingers into the hard pressure of his bent arm, but he lifted his head and reached for her. His hand caught strands of her hair on the pillow and then he was cupping the side of her face, shifting her off the pillow as he insinuated his palm.

When she blinked, her lashes brushed his hand. The arm she’d stretched across the narrow space between them now laid twined with his own, and she could brush her fingers across the vulnerable, soft skin of the inside of his elbow.

He laughed. 

She smiled, turned her smile into his palm so he could feel it. “Ticklish?”

“Mm, just affects me. Your fingers anywhere.”

She laughed then too. you’re mine you’re mine you’re mine

“Ah, fuck,” he whispered. “Makes me think about you.”

“Oh?” She lifted her head from his hand.

“No,” he grumbled. “Just thinking, Beckett. Lay down.”

“Say the same to you.”

He grunted. “I am. I’m fucked. For a few hours yet.”

“You’ll wake me when-”

“Yeah. Course.”

when you leave/when you want me   
when you have to go/when you have to come

She lowered her cheek back to his palm and his thumb touched her eyebrow, stroking, framing, soothing.

“You won’t sleep,” she murmured. Her eyes were already sliding shut.

“Be a waste of a good view,” he whispered.

He’d wake her before he left. 

you’re mine you’re mine

you’re mine.

She was.

\-----


End file.
